PARK DAY!!! The Best Day Ever

3 kids, 2 adults, 13 parks, 8 hours, 1 City...




Park day became an annual tradition in the Calandro household a few summers ago. The first year, we had very small children and went to 8 parks- each one for 30 minutes- in one day. Each year, we have added a few more parks (and somewhere along the way we added one more kid!).

The night before park day, we pack food, water, sunscreen and hats and plan our route around town. For a small town, we have found that San Luis Obispo has a lot of great parks! We never were more than 10 minutes by car between any two parks.

This year, with our youngest being a very mobile 3 1/2 years old, we decided to go bigger than ever and we hit 13 parks in one day- 25 minutes at each park... To be a Calandro means you have to keep up (If you've read this Blog at all, you know this about us...), and everyone did it beautifully.

The best part of the day is getting out at each park and watching the kids run to their favorite things with the same amount of enthusiasm as if they had not already been to several other parks that day!

We're already planning for next year- we're thinking Park Day T-shirts and buttons for anyone who wants to join us! Do you think you could keep up? Thanks to Animoto for the slideshow (check them out!) and thanks to Bowling for Soup for such a great song (The Phineas and Ferb Theme song!)

Another Miles(')tone brought to you by Panasonic

I know that title looks a little odd but it concerns our 3-and-a-half-year-old M3, Miles, who we are quickly realizing is becoming the Panasonic kid. About a week ago, Miles decided he wanted to take the training wheels off of his little bike. He's only been riding it for a couple of weeks with the training wheels because he is more interested in riding his scooter with his brothers. (I think it's because he can go so much faster on the scooter.) His balance on his scooter is great, so we decided "Why not?" and took them off.

After 3 back-breaking attempts (for dad, not for Miles- few things are more painful than running in a half crouch holding onto the back of a bike ridden by a wobbly three-year-old who is top heavy due to the ginormous bike helmet he has on...) and no success at balancing on the bike, we called it a day and he asked for his training wheels to be kept on. For some reason, he couldn't get it through his head that he needed to keep pedaling...

Today he asked for his training wheels to be taken off again. I took them off, and we had a little more success. I told him to race me and that got him motivated to pedal (even though I was running behind him hanging on to the back). On our first trip, I let go a little bit and I got the feeling this was actually going to work. Miles, on the other hand, decided he was done and asked me to put the training wheels back on.


Here's where Panasonic comes in. I knew he could do it, but I had to make it entincing for him. I told him that we would put the training wheels on, but he should try it one more time so we could film him. I got our video camera out- the Panasonic HDC-SD9- and told him that he would ride again, mommy would film it, and when he was done we could watch it on the "big TV" (which is what we still affectionately call our Panasonic TH50-PZ850). This was an incredible motivator. There are few things in the world that our boys like more than seeing themselves on the "big TV". Miles got back on the bike. We filmed it, went right upstairs, popped the SD card into the front of the TV and watched it over and over: immediate gratification.


You can see the results if you click on the video posted here. And he is now perfectly happy to leave the training wheels off.

Once again, Panasonic has inspired Miles to do more than he thought he could. When we were pulling our hair out trying to find something to motivate him to be potty trained, we found a goofy Japanese potty training video online. We used our Panasonic Toughbook Laptop (the CF-Y7) in the bathroom while he was sitting on the potty and would play the video when he did his business. We never had any worry about bringing our Toughbook into the bathroom- it can survive being dropped, bonked, and (as I found out when I accidentally spilled milk all over the keyboard while it was turned on...) wet. We do have video of this potty training process though for Miles' sake, I don't think I'll subject his future self to any undue humiliation by posting it! If it weren't for the Toughbook, I don't know how much longer it would have taken to potty train that boy!

When Panasonic gave us all of this equipment they hoped that it would inspire all of the members of our family. I know that they had expected this inspiration to come in the form of content that we would create, but they have inspired the youngest in our family to accomplish some major milestones in his life. Pretty darn impressive.

Thank you, Panasonic, for inspiring Miles to become potty trained. Thank you, Panasonic, for inspiring him to find the courage to ride his bike without training wheels. We love our equipment and will keep looking for interesting and exciting ways that it can inspire us and, hopefully, you.

Remember that you can be a Panasonic LiHD family, too. go to http://livinginhd.com/ join the community and enter to win!

Mighty PIZZA NIGHT-y

We know times are tough - if you don't know that, you have been living under a rock and you need to come on out and get some air. Times have been tough in the Calandro house before: the toughest was when Max was born: we went down to one income and John had gone back to school to get his Masters. It wasn't pretty around here, just like it's pretty ugly in a lot of places right now.

Out of this difficult time, we created a wonderful family tradition: Friday Night Pizza Night. It all began when John got a bread maker for Christmas. (That year I got a jigsaw - we're not real big on gender specific roles here at the Calandros.) Anyway, we started making our own pizza dough with the bread maker and it was better than any dough we could purchase. We started making pizza on Fridays because it gave us something to look forward to as a family every week. Everything came to a screeching halt for Pizza Night. We got a movie from the library (because it was free), got a bottle of two-buck-chuck (do the math), and made our own pizza for a fraction of what it would have cost us to get it delivered to our door. We all watched the movie together, breathed a big sigh of relief, and celebrated making it through another week, and it only cost a few dollars. All our other meals are consumed at our kitchen table, but Pizza Night happens in front of the TV. This distinction makes it very special and something for our boys to look forward to.

Through the years, pizza night became "Pizza Night" with initial caps because it deserved that status. Our three boys know it as the benchmark of the week. Miles, our three-yer-old, doesn't know the days of the week yet and will ask all week long, "Is it Pizza Night?" He lets out a big,"Hooray!" when we finally answer yes to his question. All our family knows about Pizza Night and will schedule visits to either be a part of the tradition or avoid disrupting it. Friends honor it and love being a part of it. Some friends get "Pizza Night Cravings" and call us up when they need a fix. Family and friends are always welcome and as we say as the Calandros: once you've been here for Pizza Night, you're family.

Now Pizza Night has been taken to a new level thanks to Panasonic and their Living in HD program. Now Pizza Night is PIZZA NIGHT. It deserves to be in all capital letters because our set-up has made it unbelievably AWESOME! The movies we watch on our 1080p plasma screen television are better quality that we see in our local movie theaters. The sound is incredible and you can't beat the convenience. The combination of the clarity capacity of our TV and our blu-ray player quality is unbeatable. Even our DVDs look better when played through the blu-ray player and displayed on our TV.

We feel so lucky and spoiled. We probably shouldn't admit we're a little sad at the end of the evening when we turn off our TV and head downstairs to watch Letterman on our dinky little television in our bedroom, but we are sad. Our set-up is that good. I guess the good news is our TV gives us a reason for getting out of bed in the morning so we can go upstairs to watch it! Okay, that's extreme, but it is beautiful. John says he wants to hug our television. Until you see it, you would just think he's wacked.

With our fabulous Panasonic set-up or just our old TV, PIZZA NIGHT has become the stuff of legend for the Calandros. It gives us the opportunity to come together as a family and mark the passing of another week. We celebrate with family and friends depending on what is happening for all of us. It is grounding to have a tradition every week our children can rely on, no matter what. We hope our boys will grow up and remember PIZZA NIGHT on Fridays. We hope they know how much we love this tradition and how much we enjoy creating it each week with them.

If you're ever in San Luis Obispo on a Friday night, you probably won't see us downtown at the local movie theater. You'll see us at our own home theater, munching on home-made pizza watching a movie, thinking about how good it is to be here on a Friday. Heck, let us know you're in town, and you may even be invited to attend. And then, as I mentioned before, you won't just be a stranger passing through town, you'll be family.

The Calandro 5 Credo

Being a Living in HD family has brought us countless wonderful experiences. However, a by-product of this has caught us by surprise. Living in HD has helped us bring our family's values into clear focus. One of the questions on the former LiHD website asked: "What is your family motto?" This got us thinking about what ours would be. We have created our credo. It consists of five rules, plus one bonus rule, that the Calandro 5 try our best to live by. (We thought it was cute to have five rules and five members of the family, but the bonus one couldn't be ignored.) Here they are:

#1 Be nice to everyone.

San Luis is a small town and if you've been here long enough, which we have, everyone is connected by only two degrees of separation, as opposed to the usual six. Everyone is connected to everyone, so let's keep it clean, folks. The more people we know, the smaller the world gets. A little bit of kindness goes a long way, it is usually an unexpected surprise for the recipient, and it's free. Free is good. (Not a credo, but we say that a lot.)

#2 Do the right thing.

This credo can get tricky. Sometimes the right thing isn't what we want to do AT ALL, but it is the right thing to do, so we do it. Period. Sometimes the right thing to do is right for the Calandro 5, but not for others, and people get disappointed. Weighing out who gets to be right is the tricky part. Rest assured, if we're doing something, we feel it is right for the most important people involved in the situation, and we know we are not always the most important people.

#3 Respect.

This simple word encompasses a multitude of things. Respect people, family, children, the earth, nature, where people are coming from, honorable professions, time, energy, resources, talents. The list goes on. We will begin a relationship with respect, but this must be maintained. We are nice, but we are not doormats. Respect is given by us, but it is also earned and maintained over time.

#4 Help.

"What can we do to help?" We try to have this be the first thing we say when there is a celebration, a terrible situation, or anything in-between. In return, our family and friends are some of the most generous people on the planet. We give to them, they give to us.

#5 Contribute.

This sounds similar to #4, but it is different in a way. We contribute by the professions we have chosen and we believe our jobs should provide more than just a paycheck. They should use our talents to help make the world a better place. We feel we have been so fortunate and blessed in our lives and we try to give back in any way we can. We work to "pay it forward". If we can't contribute money to a cause, we contribute time, which is priceless. We contribute to our community because we love San Luis Obispo. We contribute to our schools because knowledge is power. We contribute as much time and energy as we can to our children and family because at the end of the day, we are all we have.

#6 (The bonus rule) Create fun and adventure.

And be ready for it. Adventure can come knocking any day, at any time. Being a member of the Calandro 5 is a wild ride, mostly by our own invention, and we wouldn't have it any other way.

So there's the Calandro 5 Credo. Of course, it is subject to change as we do, but it has gotten us this far and seems to work really well. Do we expect everyone to live by these rules? No way. We know how crazy we are. This list is all ours. Living with these rules at the front of all our decisions (along with "The Coin of Destiny" - but that's a topic for another blog post) has served us pretty well so far.

Do you have a credo? Is it working for you? How do you feel when it is challenged? We'd love to hear from you.

Onward!

Connected to Panasonic

It has now been almost a month since the Crazy Calandros went to CES and were wowed by Panasonic, their incredible products, and personable family of employees. The experience will go down in our Calandro Family History as the stories are told and retold. However, this little anecdote takes the entire journey to a new level of service and dedication. This is a story of when a little bit goes a long way:

A few weeks ago we received a very discrete letter from Panasonic. The return address was pre-printed on the envelope with the words "Panasonic Ideas for Life". It looked like it could have contained anything, but what was inside was anything but ordinary. It was a thank you letter from Yoshi Yamada, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Panasonic of North America. He thanked us for appearing on the CES 2009 Main Stage as a Spotlight on Ideas speaker. He told us we contributed "a new level of extremely relevant information" with our appearances. At the end he simply said, "I know this kind of commitment of your valuable time was a challenge, and I truly appreciate your making it happen."

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!? Panasonic flew us there, gave us money for food, put us up in a hotel room for five nights, and celebrated my son's birthday as if he were a member of their own family and HE is thanking US! Sure, organizing the five of us to appear onstage every day and getting to and from Vegas was no small task, but we never dreamed of getting this kind of acknowledgement for our efforts.

Plain and simple: Panasonic gets it.

Mr. Yamada, in front of everyone who is reading and listening: we thank you. From the bottom of our Crazy Calandro hearts, thank you. Being with your company and your employees at CES gave us the opportunity to connect with a brand in a way we never thought possible. Everyone we met and talked with cared about us and what we had to say. Panasonic was interested in our opinions; we mattered. As humans, we instinctively want to feel like we are important, like we belong. Everyone at Panasonic listened to us when we talked about their products or even when we were just talking about our lives back in San Luis Obispo. For that, we thank you. We thank you for working tirelessly to link your philosophy to your consumer and the Panasonic products. Your company's vision was presented to us every day: you care about the people using your products and you want Panasonic to improve people's lives. Your personally signed letter following our trip demonstrated the importance of us to you.

That's the part you got completely correct, Mr. Yamada: you and Panasonic have improved our lives more than you can ever know. Tonight John is relaxing in front of our awesome TV and I am blogging via our laptop while sitting at my kitchen table. Tomorrow I will be taking our youngest son, Miles, to his first day of preschool. At night we will all gather in front of the TV, insert a little SD card in the slot on our television and our whole family will share in this momentous event in HD. Four months ago these occurrences would have been drastically different in our home and far less enjoyable. Thank you Mr. Yamada and Panasonic. Your "Ideas for Life" have made ours absolutely wonderful.

Catch Us If You Can

First of all - thanks to those of you who have posted comments and second of all - we apologize to those of you who have tried to post a comment but have been unable to. We're trying to figure out why some of you aren't being allowed here. It certainly isn't us, so keep trying!!

We've mentioned in this blog about how "crazy" we are and here's our chance to prove it. Here is a list of all the adventures, parties, dinners, friends and family we have hosted since September. Another title for this entry which was rejected: Try To Keep Up. And, of course, we did most of these things in HD - Thanks Panasonic. As they say - it's all about connections!

This high speed adventure began before this date, of course, because when you are a Calandro the fun never ends; but just as a reference point, we will begin with the date Panasonic (or anything Panasonic related) officially walked through our front door. Hold on to your hats and glasses folks, 'cause here we go!

Saturday, September 13:

Create With Context interview

Saturday, September 20:

Miles' third birthday; Firefighter theme, 60 guests, 26 were children

Thanks SLO Firefighters for showing up with a huge fire engine!!!

Saturday, September 27:

Travel to Huntington Lake for Neil and Tina Wood's wedding

What a beautiful day to celebrate a wonderful couple!!

Wednesday, October 8:

Panasonic equipment delivered and Greg Harper arrives in SLO. Dinner at Applebee's - sorry!!!

Thursday, October 9:

Panasonic Equipment is installed

Greg Harper is a Rock Star!!!!

Sunday, October 12:

Eileen runs the local City to Sea Half Marathon and betters her time by a full eight minutes and is a "top finisher" - I'm just a tiny bit proud :)!!

Friday, October 17

Max enters a local Lego contest at Whiz Kids with four of his friends. They worked on their entries for weeks and coordinated their huge Hoth battle entry. So impressive, if I can brag a bit!

Saturday, October 18

Travel to Santa Barbara for Papa John's 70th birthday bash at Harry's Bar and Grill

A terrific night for an amazing man - John created an HD slide show to honor John and I was proud to do the flowers for the night

Sunday, October 19 - 2:30 AM

Clean up vomit for an hour and a half at our friend's house - thanks for letting us stay!!

Too many Shirley Temples don't agree with Matthew's tummy!!!

Sunday, October 19 - 10:30 AM:

Show up late to Papa's birthday brunch at the Calandro home in Goleta - SORRY!!! (see vomit entry above) - We couldn't get ourselves out of bed on time.

Monday, October 20:

Welcome Barbara Krahn to our home to view the beautiful mobile sculpture she funded for our living room by local artist, Jim Jacobson. What a treasured, beautiful piece of art.

Wednesday, October 22:

Lego Contest winners announced: Max and his friends won the group entry category! WAHOO!

Saturday, October 25

Neighborhood garage sale - anyone want a couch that didn't sell?

Friday, October 31 - Halloween

Co-hosted neighborhood party for all the kids in our 'hood - so much fun!!!

Trick-or-treating single-parent style because John was at a school dance - more fun than being thrown into a barrel of leeches, but not by much - God Bless the single parents out there!!

Saturday, November 1

John and I drive to Santa Barbara for a private 40th birthday party with our dear friends Tara and Sam at John's favorite restaurant: The Palace Grill. What a great night!

Wednesday, November 5

John turns the big 4-0!! Celebrate in traditional Calandro style at the Madonna Inn with dinner and dessert delivered to our table all at the same time

Saturday, November 15

Johnnie's birthday bash! 58 friends and family helped John welcome in his new decade - thanks to my sister for her food prep help and Bill for tending bar. Eileen created an interactive true/false HD slide show with photographic evidence for answers. Lost more than one party guest upstairs due to the impromptu Wii golf tourney that occurred. Good times! Surprise guests from Wisconsin! WOW! What a night!!!

Sunday, November 16

Family birthday brunch for out-of town guests in town for the party. Thanks for rescuing the eggs, Papa John! You are the egg man.

Wednesday, November 26

Travel to Pleasanton to celebrate Thanksgiving at Eileen's sister and brother-in-law's

Wednesday, November 26 about 9:00 PM after the kids are in bed

Lori and Bill announce they are awaiting the birth of a baby due Christmas Day for them to adopt - Is this going to be the one that makes them parents, finally? High-speed, non-stop praying begins

Thursday, November 27

Thanksgiving Day -what a feast!!! So many things to be thankful for it's amazing - the thankfulness runs in to Friday because the list is so long.

Friday, November 28

Travel back to SLO and start decorating for the legend that has become the Calandro Christmas Crazy Party - this is it's eleventh year

Saturday, November 29

Greg Harper asks us if we would be interested in travelling to Las Vegas for CES in January - we debate for all of thirty seconds - HECK YEAH!! See you in Vegas, Baby!!! (We are SO crazy!!!)

Friday December 5

Downtown SLO Christmas parade - more goats and tractors than should be allowed

Saturday, December 6

Snow is delivered to our front lawn and three hours later we welcome family and friends to our home to celebrate the season. We ask everyone to bring unwrapped toys and non-perishable food items for a local charity. Total number of guests: 137 which includes 58 kids. The donations were incredible this year!! Our friends give until it hurts!! You all rock!!!

Saturday December 13

Tara and her two boys here at the Calandro B&B because they are in town for a wedding.

Greg Harper and Owen here from 11:00AM until 11:30PM filming footage to be used in Vegas for CES. Day also includes a basketball game for Max, photo swapping with a friend, and the creation of a slide show for another friend's wedding reception. Pasta feed for twelve!! Phew!

Friday, December 19

Adam Broitman and Jody Gnant here to train us in all things social media. They join us for the infamous Calandro Pizza Night on our beautiful big screen TV. They are informative and fun!

Saturday, December 20

John drives kids to Goleta so they can go to a show with Grandma C and Papa and their cousins. He drives home again. Eileen stays home to try to get Christmas under control. AAAAAAA!!!!!

Sunday, December 21

Pick up kids in Goleta and drive to LAX to pick up Luke who is visiting from Australia for a month. Keep in mind all entries from here on involve one more family member that is fed, driven around and coordinated into the Crazy Calandro mix.

Tuesday, December 23

Grandma Frog and Grandpa Richard arrive from the Bay Area to spend Christmas with us - are they nuts?!?!?!? Light neighborhood luminaries at 5:30 and stroll the 'hood. Love living here!!!

Wednesday, December 24 - Christmas Eve, 2008

Head to Pismo Beach to watch the sunset. Prayers for no rain are answered and the tradition lives on for another year. Home for crab cakes with our neighbors, put cookies out for Santa and sprinkle reindeer food on the lawn. Kids go to bed and the adults prepare for the next day.

Thursday, December 25 - Christmas, 2008

Our kids managed to be good enough for Santa to come to our house for one more year! He brought Legos galore and we gave our kids Rock Band for Wii - Watch out Jonas brothers!! Auntie Lisa, Auntie Jo, Grandma C and Papa arrive for the traditional Christmas Brunch and we eat ourselves silly. Grandma C takes on Matthew in a Wii bowling match and then braves Wii boxing. Nothing creates Christmas memories like seeing your son beating up his Grandma! (WHAT?!?)

Friday, December 26:

Inhospitably kick out our house guests (except Luke, of course) because Eileen starts working on Becky and Bob's wedding reception flowers. Side note: No baby news yet for Lori and Bill - the baby is now overdue - we are still praying for the miracle of adoption for our family

Saturday, December 27:

Finish flower arrangements, load them in the minivan, and drive to Nipomo for the reception. The event goes off without a hitch at the beautiful Monarch Club at Trilogy. John created a fabulous HD slide show for all to see and burned extra copies for family members of the bride and groom. All five of us dance ourselves silly to relieve some stress and have a great time. (Luke stayed at home for a little quiet time - smart boy!!)

Sunday, December 28:

Day of rest so we go on a four mile hike up one of our favorite peaks in SLO: San Luis Mountain. There for the tree lighting. Have we mentioned we love living here??!?!?!?

Monday, December 29:

Dear, close friend Vince arrives for a visit and to celebrate New Year's Eve with us. Watch The Dark Knight in HD on our big TV. Did you know the Joker's string is purple in the bank robbery scene? Unless you're living in HD, I didn't think so.

Tuesday, December 30:

Another day of rest so we travel thirty miles up the coast to explore Hearst Castle with Vince and Luke. Spectacular day!!! (Someday we will swim in that pool - mark our words - any inside tracks out there? - you know it's all about connections....)

Wednesday, December 31 - New Year's Eve

See earlier blog entry

Other news not in that entry: The baby Lori and Bill have been waiting for is born at 5:30 EST. At 11:45 PM PST, John and Eileen are frantically looking into booking a flight to Maryland for Eileen and almost cause everyone to miss the Ball Drop!

Thursday, January 1, 2009, 1:00 AM

Back home from ball drop and John books a flight online for Eileen to go to Maryland that same day. Eileen can't think straight enough to do anything. Drink champagne and mourn the end of an incredibly amazing Living in HD year. The fun has just begun!!

Thursday, January 1 5:40 AM

John drives me to SLO airport for 6:20AM flight to Maryland. This little niece is closer than she's ever been, but nothing is final until papers are signed. Eileen wonders if the butterflies in her stomach could fly her to Maryland instead of an airplane. She goes for the sure thing and gets on her flight, abandoning five house guests, Luke and her family for the hope ahead.

Thursday, January 1

Back in SLO our guests leave after John makes them a killer New Year's Day brunch

Thursday, January 1, 5:00PM

Eileen crosses the Potomac river and wonders about how crazy life can get. Puts the thought aside and drives to the future of her family. God bless GPS and Visa!!

Thursday, January 1, 5:30 PM

Arrive at hospital, am greeted by the Birth Mom and my sister (the Future Mom) in the lobby. Baby Grace is beautiful!!!! Lori, Bill and I go out to dinner later to celebrate.

Friday, January 2:

Bright and early we all go to the hospital to sign the papers for the adoption. As Lori and Bill sign the documents, I get private time with Grace who officially becomes our niece in the middle of our special time alone. Grace leaves the hospital with her Mommy and Daddy. What a journey!

Saturday, January 3:

Home in SLO John prepares for the final interview with Create With Context - sorry to miss that, but I'm sure you understand the circumstances!

In Maryland, I pry myself away from my sister and brother-in-law (who are awesome) and baby Grace to head home on a flight to SLO. I have to sprint three-quarters of a mile in the Phoenix airport to make my connecting flight. I am so motivated to get home I am only passed up by a six foot-two college student. If I didn't have on a twenty pound back-pack I could have taken him! Arrive in SLO in time for dinner with the fam.

Tuesday, January 6, 4:30 PM:

Celebrate Matthew's 6th birthday a day early at the Madonna Inn - you know by now, dinner and dessert all at the same time!! YUMMY!! I certainly wasn't doing that six years ago!

Tuesday, January 6, 8:20 PM:

We get on our plane for Vegas. This is the first flight for Matthew and Miles. Hooray and thanks, again, Panasonic!

Wednesday, January 7 - January 11:

CES in Vegas - you can see the other entries

Monday, January 12:

Max and Matthew go to school, but I end up taking Matthew home. He is officially the casualty of Vegas. He has a fever and a cough, poor kid. He stays home Tuesday and Wednesday as well.

Wednesday, January 14:

Luke's last day in SLO is a full one. He watches the kids so Eileen can attend a funeral. RIP Phil Nolan - you will be missed. Luke takes us out to dinner downtown at Mo's, then we go to Arroyo Grande to Doc Burnstein's for dessert. Back home to pack and then Luke and Eileen head downtown SLO to celebrate his twenty-first birthday. Three bars and beers and shots later we head home to prepare for tomorrow....

Thursday, January 15:

Travel to Disney's California Adventure to celebrate Matthew's sixth birthday. This is the traditional birthday treat in lieu of a party (thank goodness!!!) What a great day! Meet up with Grandma Frog and Grandpa Richard who have flown in to celebrate with us. They ROCK!!

Friday, January 16:

Celebrate at the Big D. Matthew is so tired by the end of the day he almost falls asleep in his ice cream. Are we attentive parents, or what?!?!? We all had a terrific day together.

Saturday, January 17:

Up bright and early to get Luke to LAX. Said goodbye and were on the road to SLO by 9:04 AM. Max changed his clothes in the car and we drove him straight to his basketball game. Had make-up pizza night that night.

Sunday, January 18

John's brother David and his wife Donna and their two sweet kiddos, Nicolas and Ava, arrive for lunch and to hang out. They live in San Diego so we don't get to see them nearly enough. They are in town for business that could move them closer. We are crossing our fingers! They leave around 3:00 and later that night we have dinner just the five of us, at our dinner table, for the first time in over a month. Whew! John and I have been saying, "Closer than we've ever been," for months as we faced the journeys ahead. We drank champagne and said, "We've arrived!"

Monday, January 19 Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday

I am sick with a cough and a runny nose. I held it off for as long as I could and my body just can't take any more. We have put a shield around the house for the day: unless you are bringing us food or a massage table to use on me, we are shut down. Only the five of us are allowed at our house today. Thanks for understanding.

So there you have it. I think the last time John and I had this much going on was when we got married. At least then we got to go on a honeymoon!! We know we brought most of this on ourselves, if not all of it, and we wouldn't change a thing. Thanks, again, to all of you who came along for this craziness. According to our calculations, we hosted 286 people, in some form or another, at our home in the last four months. I'm sure we have missed a few guests along the way, and we apologize for leaving you out of our count. We also traveled countless miles - we could count them, but we're too tired to do it!

During all of this, John managed to do his job as an Assistant Principal at Templeton High, Eileen managed to manage the kids and all that entails, we decorated our house for Christmas and tore it all down, we coordinated all of the logistics and paper work on our end for CES, sent out Christmas cards, bought, made, wrapped and mailed gifts for people, and basically we lived our lives during our busiest time of year. No wonder I'm sick and we're all exhausted. We aren't sure what our next adventure is, we rarely are, but there's a baby up in Pleasanton that hasn't met her Uncle John or her Calandro cousins yet....ONWARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What it means to Live in HD

Living in HD has been a fantastic experience. First of all, we have a ton of phenomenal equipment. Our family is very busy and used the technology we had prior to having the "right"equipment. Since we have gotten our Panasonic suite of products, everything we do is just better, easier, and faster. We have burned videos of parties and events for friends and families, we have created awesome slideshows to share with each other and as gifts for friends, we have learned how to post photos, video, and content to the web, and we have taken our laptop to places we never thought we would (more on that in another post...).

Our family has had a long standing "Pizza Night". Every Friday we make a pizza and watch a movie. We have been doing this for 9 years now. It is the only night of the week that we eat in front of the tv. Having a Blu-Ray player and a 1080p incredible 50" Viera Plasma tv has pumped that up to a whole new experience. One of our friends commented that the quality on our tv was better than we'd get in any theater! He's right, and with the price of taking a family to the theater these days (over $50 just to get our family in the door-before concessions!), the tv would pay for itself in just a few movies!

The greatest thing about being a LiHD family is the new community of people we now have in our lives. The families that we have heard from in the LiHD project have all been wonderfully welcoming and friendly people. I think it's because Panasonic is looking for the everyday person to be a part of ths project and, contrary to what the news may have us believe, everyday people are generally kind, welcoming, and helpful. You can see this in the videos on Panasonic's Living in HD website- livinginhd.com , and in the other blogs developed by families.

The people at the Panasonic corporation and the people that they have sent to us to train us on how to use our equipment have been phenomenal. Greg Harper is a genius and has more energy than 10 people. You'll see him pop up on the videos on the Panasonic site. He's met all of the families in the project and is a driving force behind this whole thing. He has the ability to fit in anywhere and talk to anyone. He tells great stories and always seems to be available to us no matter what the issue.

Naomi at Panasonic has been so patient with all of our requests, questions, and random ideas. She is incredible and we appreciate her tremendously.

Adam Broitman came to us to help us out with posting content to the internet. He has a great sense of humor and is a natural teacher. He is also a powerhouse in his industry (you can check him out at www.crayonville.com). He became family quickly in our household and joined us for Pizza Night!

Jody Gnant came with Adam. They made a great team! She helped me to Twitter and has more hands-on web information than we had time to share. She also joined us for Pizza night and all three boys were enamored of her! You can check her out at jodygnant.com. (Oh, did I mention she's got a great voice?)

Our friends and family are enjoying our new LiHD life, too. In addition to receiving way more pictures, videos, and information than they ever have from us (because it is sooo much easier now), they have gotten to enjoy our equipment. The highlight of Christmas was watching my mother and my 5-year-old do boxing on the Wii. It was truly hysterical and my mother was better at it than any of us expected!

Living in HD is awesome. I can't wait to meet more of the families and continuing the Panasonic adventure.

Our next adventure is at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. If you're in the area or at the show, come on by and see us in the Panasonic booth. We'd love to meet you and make you part of our LiHD life!

Four big boxes

Our contact from Panasonic called us about a week and a half after we had found out that we had won. He explained the program to us:

We are family 39 and they are adding more families throughout the year. We would be asked to participate in weekly surveys and would be encouraged to use and share our equipment. Panasonic really is interested in knowing what we think about all of the equipment we would be receiving and would use the information we provided to improve and enhance future products. The entire family is encouraged to use all of it and we are expected to report the good and the bad.

A few weeks later, we finally had a date set to receive all of our equipment. Before the equipment was shipped, we participated in a family pre-interview that asked about our family, our viewing habits, our use of technology, and how we thought things would be different when we got the equipment.

To be honest, at that point, it was really hard to imagine...What would it be like to have all of this new equipment in the house. When my wife and I sat down to think about it, we realized it was very rare for us to buy the best of anything (mostly because we can't afford it). Here we were, about to receive not only all of the technology that I had ever wanted, but it was the best equipment there was- and we were getting all of it...at once...and it was all going to be installed!

A few weeks later, Here is what we saw:

Four big boxes- The TV (WOW!!), a big mystery box simply labeled "39 Calandro ", some speaker stands, and another long box...The box was delivered while I was at work. I had to sit through a rather long meeting knowing that it was all there...waiting... My wife was kind enough to wait for me!

Needless to say, the boys were excited.

And were dying to see what was inside the big box, which contained a ton of stuff!

Like the video camera (note the stunned look on my face- not my best look!), the receiver, the speakers, two digital cameras, power strips, cables,

the Wii (the boys' favorite thing!),

and a big bag of other stuff- cables, SD cards, blu-rays, Wii games!!! Wahoo!

The youngest, of course, just wanted to play with the box from the computer.

The excitement was beginning to peak...We opened everything up and charged all of the batteries so we would be ready for the installation....