Ephraim And Rachel Maniago: Week 19-20: Sweeter as the Years Go By

Wow, it's been quite a busy past couple weeks and lots to catch you guys up on. Here's a rundown of the events of the past week (and change):

Sweeter as the Years Go By
So our favorite preggy eggy just turned 19 + 10 on July 16. We spent a quiet birthday dinner with the sis-in-law that night at Cafe Hiro in Cypress and it was gastronomically spectacular as usual. The following Monday we were at the mom-in-laws for the family bday celebration. You can catch a glimpse of our collective vocal prowess in the video below:

You may notice we broke it down with a phatty remix at the end. No, it wasn't your standard "and many more, on channel four" or "scooby doo on channel two", or better yet, "you look like a monkey and smell like one too" .... which are the typical epilogues to the classic birthday song - no way, that's amateur hour son! The Quizon clan is down with Jesus and they break it down Christian style. I was first introduced to the Quizon bday remix when Rachel and I first dated and now it's grown to be one of the favorite parts of my own birthday (I always forget the words though). It turns out that the words are a Christian hymn inspired by Psalm 92:12-14.

What's cool about the above video is that I shot, edited (via the iMovie App) and published it from my brand spankin' new iPhone 4.0! Good segue into my next topic.

I Don't Heart AT&T
To properly chronicle every single of Camille's precious moments (for future blackmail fodder and the obligatory wedding slideshow of course), Rach and I were intent on getting a new video camera. We mulled around getting the flip, but the idea of putting yet another gadget on our bat utility belts just didn't make a lot of sense. Solution: the iPhone 4. *Hark the Herald Angels Sing* The built-in HD video cam, 5MP camera and just plain geek cred made this gadget a must have. It turns out that getting to phone nirvana would be quite a chore indeed.

Because of the scarcity of the phone all over the world, we put ourselves on the wait list just like every other schmuck Apple has suckered into buying all their junk. ETA 2 weeks. About 1.5 weeks later, we got email notifications that our phones were ready to get picked up from the Apple store at South Coast Plaza! Woo hoo! We only had 24 hours to pick up and activate the phone before it got released to someone else. The picking up part was easy enough, but the activating part (read: dealing with AT&T) was a trip to the house of pain. Once the hipster Apple employee pressed the button to activate the phone, a cryptic "error" message appeared. The Apple guy then proceeded to call AT&T support, which at 8:51 PM at night is sketchy at best. With about 20 mins. of back and forth between Apple Guy and AT&T service rep, the issue did not come to a happy conclusion. Suffice to say we did not leave with our iPhone's that day, but rather I left with a mighty furrowed brow and poo face.

The next day, we vamoosed on over to a physical AT&T store to figure out what all the shenanigans were about. What the dealie - AT&T-E. Ultimately, the culprit turned out to be my ancient service plan (circa the Cingular days), that the new systems could not attach new iPhone plans to. We had our plans upgraded, returned to the Apple store and yes, by Odin's beard, the picture below is the end result.

Victory!

And.... most important of all, my phone is now no longer held hostage by the wifey's incessant Words With Friends addiction! BTW, her new iPhone App Crack is Angry Birds which she's playing as I type this. Expect a few vlogs every now and again as we test out our new video capabilities and would be delighted on any suggestions for our first one.

The Itchy & Scratchy Show
Rach has been pretty itchy all around lately. Part of it might be due to her belly stretching, but we're hoping it's not due to an emerging allergic reaction to her progesterone shots. We have our bi-weekly visit with our high-risk preggy doc tomorrow, so hopefully he'll be able to give us some answers or tips for relief. According to the mom-in-law, itchiness is indicative of Camille's hair growing. Sort of like the ringing of your ears is indicative of someone talking smack about you, or biting your cheek means someone has a crush on you. Two seemingly disparate things, but I'll go with it!

EVO2K
In a non-baby related news, some of you may or may not know that my brother is a world championship caliber video game guru, specializing in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (MvC2). His handiwork with the video game stick was evident even at a young age where he would kick all of our arses in Street Fighter 2 (though I would still challenge anybody in SF2 - I play a pretty mean Dhalsim and Guile). He recently competed at the EVO2K video game world championship and placed 3rd (peep the video of his win below). Way to go Clcokw0rk, Camille is proud of her Uncle!