Best distinguished by crown shape; A. columnaris is narrower, with denser branching, and a usually sinuous or slightly leaning trunk, while A. heterophylla is broader with more open branching and a straight trunk. The foliage is probably indistinguishable. A. columnaris is from New caledonia. No good colloquial names for either, they are both often wrongly called pines, which of course they aren't. Resin

It's a great idea to actually plan an event for your daughter that she will enjoy, which involves your family. Inviting people to a party who can't be bothered to RSVP only sends the signal they don't care about her. It's always been my feeling that parties are more fun if you invite people you know and care about. (I can't tell you how many times an evening was ruined by someone who thought it was all about them, instead of the guest of honor.) We don't have parties any more; like you, we go places and create memories that way.

"Still, Scott is right when he points out that tossing some of the "yard art" into a trash can isn't that difficult." You'd be surprised. I live in one of those [euphemism] "transitional" [/euphemism] neighborhoods in a fairly [euphemism] "transitional" [/euphemism] small city (one of those places where people asked us "seriously, you're moving THERE?!") and the trash collection company is picky as all get-out about what they will and will not take. Piles accumulate because it's hard to get rid of some stuff without paying someone to come take it away, which can be absurdly expensive, or you try to find a willing person with a truck and can get to the transfer station during their ridiculously truncated hours (after going to the city clerk's office during their impossible-for-people-who-actually-have-jobs hours to buy the disposal stickers)... and even the transfer station has limits on what they'll take. When we took down our collapsing garage we rented a dumpster for the debris, and I'm glad we got the biggest one we could because a lot of junk that wasn't ours mysteriously appeared in it. It's an old neighborhood, the vast majority of the houses are from 1880-1910 and a great many of them are pretty run-down, but it's where we could afford to live without starving to pay the mortgage. (Most of the "affordable" single-family housing around here is either that or trailer parks. Oh, sorry, "manufactured home communities".) Most of the people in my neighborhood are scrambling frantically these days, either working multiple jobs, or one job with long hours, so it's unsurprising that the curb appeal suffers. They're more concerned with keeping the heating bill paid and food on the table and their kids in school (this city has one of the highest dropout rates in the state, and truancy rates are crazy high too), it's lucky the lawn even gets mowed. As a side note, virtually everyone in my social circle is low-income/working poor, most of them at or below the poverty line. DH and I would like to be kind of a "role model" for the block in terms of making things neat and all, but it's difficult especially since we're now very reluctant to spend anything and DH has extremely limited time and skill for big DIYing projects. (I'm useless for anything besides planning and supervising.) We're hoping to tackle the peeling and rotting porch this coming summer but don't know how successful we're going to be, it will depend on many other factors. I've only been to an Ikea once because the nearest one is well over 3 hours away each way. The store drove me crazy (I felt like a rat in a maze) but I was VERY impressed with their kitchen cabinets and wardrobe systems, and I liked the Billy bookcases quite a bit. Sure, it was a million miles away from handcrafted products, but no one I know can afford that stuff anyway. We were planning a kitchen renovation in our previous house before we sold it, and intended to use Ikea cabinets because they offered a lot of features that you just don't see in that price point elsewhere.

We just got back from a week long trip with a 3 year old. He was not all that impressed with the zoo--I love the zoo and was not impressed with it either. The bus tour basically just showed you where the animal attactions were--most of the time you could not really see anything. He loved the train ride in Balboa Park. We did not have time to do any of the museums. We did the Wild Animal Park and he liked that much better than the zoo. It was a LOT of walking though. They were having a dinosaur exhibit that he really liked. His favorite things there was the Lorikeet feeding and carousel that was full of wild animals--not the standard horses like other carousels. We went on a tour of the USS Midway--he was not interested at all. We did a bay tour with one of the companies there on the bay and he loved that. Bring lots of quarters if you go downtown because it's all meter parking. While there we went over to Seaport Village and he loved that. They have a large fountain that fascinated him as well as a beautiful antique carousel ride from 1895 (all wooden horses). He loved the pizza place there and the candy shop. We went to Coronado one day and he loved the beach/ocean. He would have been happy with any beach/ocean though. We went to La Jolla on our way back from the Wild Animal Park and it was beautiful but it would have been too rough for him to play in the water. We didn't make it to Legoland because we also had a teenager with us. We also didn't go to Seaworld just becaues we have one near us and go all the time.