Me & my life

Bowling and the first signs of Spring.

2009-03-07T14:28:00.001-08:00

So we can see that the first signs of spring our about, as the daffs are starting to come up and the buds are beginning to form on the trees. It was especially apparent when Owen & I took a quick walk with Milo on Friday while Darren and Morgan took a bike ride to the Library. (Owen was feeling a little under the weather with a head cold and didn't want to ride) but it was such a lovely day that we decided we should take a little constitutional to clear everyones head, not to mention that Milo just loves to be out. (Which is pretty evident!)

What was more important though was that Darren was home for the weekend and the kids are just ecstatic about that. I know they really miss him, and i

t will quite hard on everyone when he leaves again tomorrow morning. Still we're off to see the musical "Wicked" so hopefully that will distract them. In the interim, we got to go bowling today at Grand Central Bowling downtown. Here's a great shot of Morgan's reaction to getting a strike.

Here's a quote that sums up my kids perfectly.

"Children in a family are like flowers in a bouquet: there's always one determined to face in an opposite direction from the arranger desires." - Marcelene Cox

'aint that the truth!

Is it really March already?

2009-03-03T08:48:00.000-08:00

Jeez, so much for my blogging, I only posted once during the whole month of February! I don't think I really had any excuses really either. Still with Darren away and me being a single parent again, life just gets away from me, and I don't have a ton of time to blog today because I still need to dust (start the house cleaning - tres boring info, I know) before heading back to the school to work in Owen's classroom and then going to buy the boy a new pair of baseball cleats as the tryouts are this evening and he now wears a size 6 shoe. I was hoping Morgan would be able to wear his old shoes seeing as she is a size 4 but his cleats from last year are 1/2 a size to big! I swear that boy has grown another 2 inches overnight. I can't rest my arm on his head anymore, but I can rest my chin. Anyway enough about that! I'm sure this is all very interesting to those hundreds of people (Yeah right!) who read and comment and can't get enough of my drivel. So on that note, I shall sign off and go clean. YEAH!

Decompressing after the Talent Show

2009-02-19T08:32:00.000-08:00

You know if maybe almost a week since we finished the Talent Show but it's amazing how long it has taken to decompress. Of course, life is never just calm and relaxed what with Darren being in Aspen for the next couple months and the life of a single parent is never slow that's for sure. But I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that Jim & I with the help of Blake, managed to pull off the Talent Show and from what I'm hearing quite successfully too! It's weird though, because it was a little like planning your own wedding insofar that it was a total blur and I don't really remember the experience that well. I'm looking forward to seeing the DVD. What I do remember were the things that went wrong, like when Morgan forgot her words but then managed to pick up and finish the song. (Apparently she came off stage in tears because she felt she'd messed it up - and I was completely unaware of this until Nancy told me the following day). I do remember Owen and I sitting down at 10 o'clock that night eating a microwaved cheese & ham sandwich (tasted way better than it sounds! - Morgan was at a sleepover).

Now the big question is whether or not to take it on again next year. I'm still very much on the fence about it and it would really depend on whether or not Jim and Blake would be on board with it. That being said, this is Blake's last year at the school and he has no reason whatsoever to do the Talent Show again this coming year so it will take a lot of persuading... and truthfully if he's not on board I really don't think I'd want to do it again...

Anyway aside from that my plans now are to get a flyer up and running to start up Stop-n-crop again up here and start offering scrapbook classes again. But today is a day of returns and errands and then it's back to my crazy ol' life.

The big CUPCAKE adventure!

2009-01-31T14:10:00.000-08:00

Last day of January, and I can truly say that I'm happy to see it end. Not the best month for me in any year, but this year big time sucko!.. That being said, I haven't completely been sitting on my laurels, aside from being fully immersed in the Duniway Talent show, I have been putting my creative juices to work and have tried to perfect or at least improve my cupcake making and in particular the frosting... Now you may say "Really! That's what you've been doing in your spare time!" and my response is that when your almost 10 year old son suggests that you should open a frosting store because (and I'm quoting here) "Mom, you make the best frosting ever!", I don't consider that a waste of either my time or talent! LOL! Not that I am going to rush out and open a frosting store anytime in my future, because lets face it it cupcakes would get very old very fast if I did. But I am enjoying the experiementation of the process! This week, Gingerbread cupcakes with lemon cream cheese frosting. A couple weeks ago it was raspberry filled chocolate cupcakes with chocolate cream cheese frosting. And considering cupcakes cost on average $3 a pop in stores I'm happy to make them myself. (Thank god for Jazzercise and the kids who actually eat the cupcakes - and Darren who offsets the not so healthy food with healthy dinners and such!)

Of course I didn't stop there. I also created some chocolate covered

pretzels yesterday too while Owen & Morgan had a bunch of friends over.) I had wanted to create them as Valentines for the kids to give out at school, only to find out there is a rule about homemade treats at school as in, they aren't allowed. Oh pooh! Oh well kids got to take some home to their siblings after I had the fun of making them. So there you have it! What have you been up to?

Just another day in January......

2009-01-27T12:16:00.000-08:00

Not that I have anything particularly interesting to write. Woke up this morning to snow - again.. weird. Last year it was constantly raining, this year SNOW! Not that I'm complaining, I like the snow, it makes everything seem so crisp and clean, of course that is until it starts to melt. I'm just glad that we aren't going to have a repeat of what happened before Christmas with the schools closing. This is most definitely temporary. Especially as it is already starting to melt.

But that is not the reason for me to be blogging today. I'm just trying to catch you all up on life. Darren's movie was pushed to later in the year and he is busy trying to get a start up company going with some partners. I'm not going to go into any great detail as of now, mainly because I have no idea quite what it is he's doing. Needless to say its something to do with the Movie Business. It is a little scary have absolutely NO income right now - but he assures me that we will be okay. Of course we have severely tightened our belts. I had to actually think twice before I bought myself a new pair of socks yesterday, and the library is seeing an awful lot of me as of late. I love the library!! I know I'm not the only one in this boat what with the current state of the economy, but it doesn't make it any less scary!

So my time is being spent working on putting together this year's Talent show at Duniway. We are into week 3 of rehearsals. It will all be over in another 2 weeks. Show night is February 13th, and it takes up the majority of my time. (Thank goodness the auction projects are both complete and turned in.) What with rehearsals 4 days a week. It's been interesting and there had definitely been a huge learning curve and I'm enjoying it somewhat. All I can say is thank goodness for my Co-chair/organizer Jim van Hook, one of the dads at the school and Blake Sakamoto who has run the sound system for the past years during Talent Show. There is absolutely no way we could have pulled this off with them. But I will be somewhat relieved when it is all over.

Here's the front of one of the programs that I created for Show 1.

So that's what has been going on in my life... how about you?

Belated "Happy" New Year

2009-01-15T08:34:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I know I've gone dark for a few weeks and since the Christmas break it's just been non-stop what with trying to finish this auction project for the school and doing the 4th Grade one which has been somewhat of a scramble... and the start of Talent Show rehearsals that I, and my co-chair Jim (Thank god for Jim), are running this year I feel as if I have been running on full speed a head without any breaks or should I say brakes! And none of it seems to be slowing down either. Of course once the auction projects are out of my hair I will be able to breathe a sigh of relief. For those who are not aware, Darren built a couple of benches (one for each class) and then I took photos of all the 2nd graders and transfered their images onto tile - with the 4th grade lot I had them draw a self portrait and those images will be transfered onto tile too. I ran into all kinds of problems with the images though, the medium melted the image then the image chipped off the tile. A project I've done before but has caused me no end of headaches. All I can say is that never again. Anyway have to run got a million details to get to plus art class for Morgan today, a trip to the library to return a book and pick up two more and a rehearsal to run..... phew. Anyway here's Owen's self portrait that he did.

Trouble in paradise....

2008-12-23T14:52:00.001-08:00

Oh boy oh boy are my kids in BIG BIG Trouble.. While cleaning house today, I happened to notice on Owen's dresser - a dresser he had inherited from his dad, who had refinished and varnished it as a 15 year old when times were tight, a carving of Owen's and Morgan's names into the dresser. Darren is so mad he has told the kids they are grounded till he leaves (in 2 1/2 weeks) and he wants to completely cancel Christmas. Trouble is the more he thinks about it the angrier he is getting. Doesn't help that both Morgan & Owen are pointing fingers at each other. Owen admitted to some of the carving but insists that Morgan did some and Morgan completely denies any wrong doing at all. She in turn is belligerently sitting in her room being very dramatic crying saying she'll never get to play in the snow again or have sleepovers or play dates. Not one of them as actually apologized. This all makes for a very happy Christmas, especially as Darren would like any excuse to not have it anyway. Oh dear.....on top of that we have guests for dinner tonight who are bringing their daughter who happens to be a friend of Morgan's and on Christmas day we're supposed to go to another friend of Owen's house for Christmas day dessert. Let's hope everyone cools down a bit and learns to take responsibility for their actions. I guess Darren will think twice before giving Owen a knife again!!!

Snow keeps on coming....

2008-12-22T17:42:00.000-08:00

Two words... GLOBAL WARMING... I kid you not, we have approximately 14+ inches of snow in our back yard and after deciding to be nice and shovel snow.. yes you heard it... me shoveling snow off of our drive way (not in my wildest dreams did I ever think I'd be doing that in my lifetime here in Portland OR) I woke up again this morning and it looked like it had never been touched...

This is seriously the craziest weather ever for us. Can't really drive in this weather so I trekked up to the local supermarket to buy eggs and ham and trudged back down the hill along the road ways because the snow was just too deep to walk through on the sidewalks. Morgan & Owen went sledding again with friends after building a very impressive snow hut (not quite an igloo) yesterday. (Check out the progress).

Milo is just in heaven

- he loves this stuff and he likes to lie in the snow and watch people walking, sledding and occasionally skiing by.

This evening Morgan & I are going to a Mother-daughter cookie exchange in the local neighborhood and I'm going to pull her along on the sled. (No point in even attempting to drive). Owen is sleeping over at a friends house tonight. We've always wanted a white christmas but forecast is for rain.. Still it could just be more snow though..

Snow day in the deep freeze.

2008-12-15T17:14:00.000-08:00

As unbelievable as it may seem we got hit by an arctic blast that has turned our roads in to ice rinks and the kids got to have a much prized snowday - no school, so after a day of snow falling we woke to a crystal clear but extremely frigid day and the kids were beside themselves with the idea of getting to play in the snow....here are some of the pictures. Luckily Owen met up with some of his friends and got to sled. This was one of my favorite shots. Of course, it wasn't all play. They still had to do their chores and had their piano lesson that evening. I even attempted to go to the store but the roads were pretty icy and most people were driving at about 5 mph which was more dangerous than anything else. But hey, better safe than sorry I guess. All I can say is thank god they have school tomorrow.

A suprise visit from Uncle P....

2008-12-15T16:53:00.000-08:00

Well of course, I have a ton of stuff to tell namely that we went to Idaho for Thanksgiving and then the visit by Uncle Pee (namely Paul) which was such a great surprise for the kids who were in a complete state of disbelief when Paul came up the stairs on Saturday morning while we were getting breakfast ready. Owen's face in particular was a picture going from confusion to recognition to utter disbelief and then total joy that there was their English Uncle standing in their Portland House. And he couldn't have picked a better weekend to visit as the sun was blasting high in the sky and it made for a glorious day to go and pick out our Christmas tree. We managed to give him a cliff notes tour of Portland, taking him downtown to experience Portland's famed Voodoo Doughnuts and Stumptown coffee, and the most amazingly colorful sunset that night, only to wake up the next morning to experience the ultimate Portland weather, pouring rain. After a lovely breakfast in NE Portland at The Tin Shed we, took Paul up to the Pittock Mansion before heading down to Powell's bookstore and finishing up at Moonstruck chocolatier for a well deserved coffee/chocolate/ tea (depending on your particular taste.) It was sad when I had to drive him to the airport the following morning but we had a such a fantastic time it was a real treat for all of us, including Milo!

Sometimes technology just makes me so.... grrrrrrr@#$#@

2008-11-22T21:25:00.000-08:00

And I can't say more than that. First off I get my butt out of bed super early on Friday morning to go and get the newest and "supposedly" (please note the quotation marks) greatest new phone from Blackberry the STORM. And with promises from the Verizon people that "of course it's compatible with my Mac." What a load of boloney. Not only is it not compatible, but there is NO after market product as of yet that allows me to sync my calendar and all my contacts onto my new phone, so I spent the better part of the day inputting my most important and most used numbers into my new phone. (SO MUCH FOR A SMART PHONE). As for my calendar - well forget it. I'm about ready to give up on the stupid blackberry once and for all quite frankly. I spent all of friday googling to find out if others were having the same issue as me, and there seems to be no solution unless I want to pay an extra $40 for a less than perfect (according to others who did buy the product and found it didn't work properly) after market syncing software. What a rip off.

Then today, Darren decides to buy the Office for Mac upgrade for us as he needs it for work and after spending a good hour loading it and deleting my old version of Word, the stupid thing is only good for one load. And it wasn't cheap either. He paid over $200 for it. I'm so fed up with the whole thing. It only came with one product number and I can only use it when his computer is off. HOW STUPID IS THAT. I am so frustrated by this. I get that they need to make money and all but honestly when you live in the same house, you should be able to only have to buy the product once. It's not like it was that cheap to start with.

Anyway. Am now done with my rant. Hopefully will find a solution to the Microsoft Office Problem in the morning. As for the Blackberry Storm, unless they find a way to let me sync it to my mac within a month, it is going back to Verizon. (You get 30 days to try it out) and as far as I'm concerned I will then just have to think of something different. GRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Birthday parties and sleepovers

2008-11-09T17:31:00.001-08:00

Okay I must be truly insane because after Morgan was done with the birthday party she went to today, we invited her friend Molly to come over for a playdate.. which is nothing really out of the ordinary but then I guess in a moment of complete insanity (mainly on Darren's part because he suggested it) we invited her to stay for a sleepover and if that wasn't crazy enough, as Owen was at a playdate at Paris' house, we then invited Paris to come sleepover too...

So right now we have four kids in the house.

The boys playing on the Wii

which seems incredibly loud and the girls running circles in the house from the kitchen, through the dining room, into the living room through to the front door and back in to the kitchen.

Actually it isn't really that bad.. they're keeping themselves occupied and I'm getting to write my blog. Bed time might be interesting though.

I'm not all together sure Darren really thought this through as he just got back from Finland yesterday after being in travel mode for 24 hrs and then after we picked him up from the airport we went straight to Owen's last soccer game of the season, followed by the end of season party just to then go out last night to see the Blazer's play the Minnesota Timberwolves at the Rose Center. And after a particular lack lustre 1st half they Blazer's came back to win in the final qtr... as always it was very exciting and even though we were in the nose bleed section it was so electrified that after a while we forgot how high up we really were...

It's Official...

2008-11-04T19:13:00.001-08:00

Hallelujah.... no more Bush and no more Republicans.. It's time for our change and it's time for this country to turn around...This is the man for the job! And it's a time to celebrate history!

Election Day

2008-11-04T18:52:00.000-08:00

Nuff said. Only 70 electoral votes to go.....

Trick-or-treat

2008-11-02T08:00:00.000-08:00

Well we couldn't have asked for a better night for Halloween, despite the wet start to the day by lunch time the sun broke through as the rain disappeared and by evening we had a nice balmy 60 degree temp. So the candles were lit and the kids in costume as we got ready for our Spooky Halloween evening with friends. Check out the costumes....

As you can see Morgan "was double trouble" when she and her friend Molly decided to be dead cheerleaders. In fact at the school parade the two of them walked hand in hand down the corridor each carrying one pom-pom and I heard one person say "red-rum, red-rum". They really did look like the female equivalent of the twins from "The Shinning". So they were a big hit when they hit the Trick-or-treat road Friday night.

Owen on the other hand was almost completely unrecognizable as his version of a vampire Einstein.. I thought his costume was brilliant.

Happy Spooky day...

2008-10-31T11:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, yes I know it's Halloween.. the kids are very excited but I wanted to blog the photos of our front yard that Darren and the kids have been busy on for the last couple weeks... I took some photos before the rain arrived and with fingers crossed it will have dried up a little before the trick-or-treaters come by tonight.. otherwise the candles won't really work..

Been busy this morning making mummy fingers (asparagus wrapped in filo dough) and have to run to find spirit gum for Owen eyebrows and mustache for his vampire Einstein.. so this has be short. Will try to continue the post later.. enjoy the photos..

Toothless Moe

2008-10-30T09:39:00.000-07:00

Actually I should say toothless Morgan... because she has finally finally lost one of her front teeth and she has a big ole gap in her mouth now... I knew it was coming but truthfully I really wasn't prepared enough for the impact of her loosing that one little tooth. A sign that she is most definitely heading into big kid category and away from my sweet little baby. Okay not baby but little girl anyway. For a day or two she was most definitely a snaggle tooth and refused to smile showing her teeth and finally I guess she and Darren made a deal that if he could pull it out she could have 100 marshmallows.. At dinner that night she sat and thought about it and finally turned to Darren and told him he could pull it. Of course I don't think she realized that eating marshmallows right after pulling a tooth would be so unpleasant as of course the sugar was quite painful on that exposed area of her gum. Needless to say that it ended up with just one marshmallow (much to my relief, her dentist's relief and I'm sure her teeth's relief). Anyway here she is miss Toothless Moe

A much needed getaway...

2008-10-13T15:10:00.000-07:00

After the trials,tribulations & drama of last week nothing I care to go into but needless to say those in the know will get what I'm talking about ... I was very very glad when Darren suggested we get away for the weekend with the kids and go to Newport, OR. And we couldn't have picked a better weekend for it. The weather was spectacular.... Asides from not being particularly good on my diet... well who can possibly resist clam chowder, we had an amazing time, exploring the beach and tide pools. Taking a walk down to the wharf where we saw the sealions all basking in the sun and getting quite upset whenever another wanted to join the dock. We also got to take in the Newport Aquarium...

We also got to check out the Newport Lighthouse that was built in the late 1800's and is still working today mind you not with lard oil anymore... and then it was back to exploring more tide pools..

All in all we had a really great weekend and now it's back to the drama!

Halloween is on it's way and pumpkins are ripe for picking!

2008-10-06T13:47:00.000-07:00

Isn't that the truth, we are heading at break neck speed into the holiday season with Halloween fast approaching, we decided that this weekend was as good as any to head off the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins. So we bundled up into the car and decided to head out to Sauvie's Island with the promise that the weather would be dry... well it wasn't! Quel shocker!! So we figured what the heck.. we'd do what all other Portlanders do and just continue with our plans because as they say up here "if you postponed due to the weather ie rain, you'd never do anything" of course I did paraphrase that somewhat to death but you get my drift....Honestly it wasn't that bad, I was just mad because I'd actually bothered to dry my hair that day and with in seconds it was a frizzy mess that the birds would be happy to nest in... ho hum!
Still that didn't stop us from wandering through the corn maze with Owen as our leader who said he was just using his instincts to get us through the maze, actually what he managed to do was get us hopelessly lost, which was half the fun... all I can say is thank god for rain boots because it was really REALLY muddy and slippy. Once we finally found our way out it was onto the pumpkin field to pick out our

pumpkins... our rule has always been that if you can lift it you can have that pumpkin.. of course those two are able to lift a lot more than they used tooo... check out the pumpkins that

got picked.

As you can

see we got quite a substantial haul!

After relaxing with a yummy lunch of freshly roasted corn.. we hit the produce stand and finished our shopping...

All in all a good fall day out!

Oh yes for those of you keeping tabs.. the hand is healing but looks like leathery snake skin that is currently peeling and ITCHY, looks worse than it is though!

Healing process...

2008-10-02T12:40:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm not going to photograph my hand to show the gory details, you'll have to just take my word for it that it is particularly yucky.. especially after the blister, which had grown exponentially, popped and this oozy, liquidy substance started to come out.. it was pretty gross and painful and now I have to put a non-stick pad with neosporin with a bandage over it, which wouldn't be so bad except for the incessant itching that comes with a heal burn that is being rubbed (not in a good way) by the bandage. Still anyone who has ever had a severe sunburn will know that itching is part or the process and it will eventually stop! So I'm holding onto that hope that it too will pass!! Let's hope I don't cut my finger off tonight as the VP debates are on although I might miss them as we're going out for dinner tonight.

Well no photos today.....catch you all later.

Accident's happen.. and a weekend of camping.

2008-09-29T09:13:00.000-07:00

Well for some it's been a great weekend of camping in the pristine Mount Hood area by Trillium Lake while others, namely me, decided to have a quiet weekend at home listening to my audio book, watching with dismay, the Presidential Debate and the subsequent pundit point of views that debated more than the debaters who won... all I know is that the American people haven't. (700 billion dollar bailout.. I wish someone would give me 7 billion forget the 700 billion.) So there I was deciding to make some dinner while the politicians rattled on without ever actually answering a question that was asked and I managed to splash boiling water over my entire hand. Ouch with a capital OUCH!

So even though I managed to plant all my spring bulbs, (fingers crossed that the actually bloom) and took a pleasant walk into Westmoreland, I spent the better half of my weekend nursing my hand. Of course Darren freaked out saying I should have gone to the hospital, but seriously, other than soaking my hand in a bowl of cold water for many hours and taking some tylenol there wasn't much else you could do, it's not like my skin is falling off (yet) although it did/does hurt. Still in order to make everyone happy I am going to see my doctor this afternoon just to check it out. (Don't think he'll do much really that I'm not already doing)

While I was disfiguring myself the others, Darren, Owen & Morgan took the car and went up to

Mount Hood for a weekend of camping and kayaking on the lake. And from what I can gather they had a really fantastic time, carving wood - Darren sliced his

finger, going out on the Lake in the kayak - I understand it was freezing but so pretty, freezing especially in

the mornings and in the middle of the night when then needed to pee.... since the trailer was sold, we don't have the luxury of an indoor toilet anymore.. or a bed.. part of my reason for not going and also I thought it would be nice for the kids to have some alone time with Dad, before he goes to Finland for 1/2 a year next year.

Still other than that life is plodding along into fall.. although you wouldn't think so with 90 degree temps today.. Next week I think it will be time for pumpkins.

I'm BACKKKKKK!

2008-09-14T20:21:00.000-07:00

Did you miss me? Come be honest, after almost 3 months of no blogging you must have missed me just a little bit... No! Well hardly surprising seeing as the only people who read my blog are the very people I spent most of the summer with? Am I right?

Okay quick synopsis of my life since I last wrote, Darren went to Shreveport from the end of June and got home about a week ago only to leave again Friday (Sept 12th) to fly to Helsinki to scout for a new movie. He'll be back next Friday (Sept 19th) and hopefully will be home for a while before heading back to Helsinki for 5 months. Me and the kids, went to Europe for most of the summer, first to the UK

which was a blast and extremely expensive

and then to Italy

which was a hoot and so fantastic that it would take me way to long to describe all the wonderful sights and sounds and smells and feelings of being there. Suffice it to say that to two things that will always remind me of Italy are Sunflower fields

and the hum of bees.

Anyone who has ever been to Mike & Rita's place will know what I mean.

Of course the warmth of the sunshine and the relaxing atmosphere also added to the fantastic

vacation we had. Then another 10 days in the UK (one week with Paul & family) and 4 days in noisy ol'e London where we travelled primarily by bus (it was great - the kids particularly loved traveling on the top deck of the double deckers)

and then home. One week to recover before school started again.

And there you have the last 2+ months in a nutshell. Now I will eventually inundate you with stories and photos, but this is a taste for now.

I know.. I've been very lax.....

2008-06-28T17:15:00.000-07:00

I realize it's the end of June and there has been little or no entries on this here blog.. but life seems to have just got in the way... What with Darren being in Shreveport, the end of school, the end of my secret project - finally finished! Hurray! ... And now getting ready for the big trip across the pond (and country for that matter) for the better part of the summer. Still I seem to have found myself with a little bit of free time to be able to sit down and write, albeit a short install as it's bound to be.

Morgan is once again over at her friend Molly's house - those two seem to be inseparable what with summer camp together and the fact that Molly has one of those temporary swimming pools at her house and it being an uncharacteristically hot (97 degrees +) day. Of course a lack of a pool won't keep the girls apart either. To top it off they found out on Thursday that they got into the same class for 2nd grade again so they are quite ecstatic about that. Owen has his friend Nick over today as his parents are on a wine tasting trip today so Nick has been with us all day playing in the sprinklers, eating ice cream, drinking cold lemonade slushies just to keep cool... at one point the ice cream truck starting driving around the neighborhood and they just stood patiently for the truck to arrive and then ran down the street after the truck to get it to come to our house, and I remember looking at these little bodies running down the street in their swim suits thinking life is good.. how lucky to only have to think about getting a nice cold ice cream as your only thought.

Well as I mentioned life has been happening, we finished up Owen's baseball season this past week and despite the hard start to the season where we lost every game, we finished strong with a marked improvement in everyone's game and most importantly in Owen who was instrumental in helping his team win their very first game by slugging the ball into the outfield and helping his teammates home with 4 runs and making 2 himself... it was an amazing well played game that looked to not go well for the Red Sox but they rallied and ended up winning 3 games in a row. It was very sweet especially as this team hadn't tasted victory all season long.

Anyway check out the video.. Excuse my excitement when Owen hit the ball.. I got a little carried away in my chanting and as a result forgot to aim the camera at O.

Morgan finished her session of gymnastics with an impressive gym fest where the kids got to show off their skills individually on the floor..., the parallel bars and the beam. She even got a little trophy at the end of it...

Anyway only a week before our big trip. D will be home for the 4th July weekend and we're all very excited to see him.. I don't know when I'll be posting again.. Perhaps I can get on with Mum's computer. We will see. Otherwise I'll be even longer between blogs.. Have a great summer one and all.

Sneaking one in before the end of May

2008-05-31T11:24:00.000-07:00

Okay I know it's been few and far between with the blogging of late just life has been extremely hectic trying to get the special projects done what with the school year ending and Darren leaving for Shreveport for the summer and figuring out about new tenants for the house down in South Pas, and you know life in general.

Truthfully I don't really have a lot of to report that is very interesting. Last weekend the sun came out for the day on Saturday and so we took advantage of this and took a nice long bike ride and the kids did a really good job biking along the main road with traffic. They were a little freaked at first but did very well but then the incentive of ice cream from the new gelato place was a great motivator and they were so proud of themselves once we got home.

Of course as nice as it is to have this new gelato shop in town I worry that once we have been to the "worlds greatest ice cream" place in Florence, as touted by Michael, our little gelato place will pale in comparison. Morgan has such high hopes for this trip that it's all she is able to talk about. Still she'd eat any ice cream anywhere pretty much.

So now Darren is in LA for the next week and it's been an adjustment getting used to being a single parent again. I decided that I'd enroll the kids in one week of Summer camp through the school just so I can get the last project finished and be organized for the the trip. Originally we were going out to Shreveport to visit Darren but he had decided to come home for a couple weekends instead which is a huge relief as it's always really difficult to get ready for a trip overseas while taking a trip over to the East Coast. On top of that, I have very little desire to go to Shreveport for any amount of time in the summer when it's 100% humidity in 100degree weather. Yuk!.

I did manage to find a housesitter for the summer too so that's all squared away and Milo gets to stay home, which I hope he'll be happy about. So you see, it's all a little boring and nothing very exciting is going on.

These latest photos were taken when we visited the Rhododendron Gardens on Mother's day.

Baseball season has arrived.....

2008-05-07T14:29:00.000-07:00

Finally I have a spare moment to sit down and write this blog.. It has been soooo busy what with Morgan & Owen's talent show where they both got to perform, Owen played "London Bridge" on the piano and Morgan sang "Somewhere over the Rainbow" acapella on her own... and did a magnificent job. Of course as usual, I forgot to video it, but I am buying the DVD of the show and will try and post it if I can figure out a way to upload it from the DVD. Then of course the art show is this week that I have been very involved in helping with the set up as well as docent (ing) some of the classes around the art show. I am so stiff and sore from the experience though. Tonight is the art show with part one of the school concert that Morgan will be performing in and tomorrow is the art show with part two of the school concert that Owen will be performing in. Darren's birthday is tomorrow, but he is flying off to Shreveport Louisiana via LA and won't be back until next Wednesday and then he'll leave again for 3 1/2 months at the end of May. Thank goodness I have found a housesitter to stay and live in the house with Milo so the house WON'T be empty for all you would be burglars out there. At lease the school is recording the concerts so I can show Darren when he gets back.

Anyway the real reason for the posting is that finally Owen has been able to play baseball this year as the weather (hallelujah) is now dry (albeit cold) so after the first game was rained out, they got to play two games back to back Monday & yesterday. Unfortunately they didn't win but Owen did manage to stop one of the other team in their tracks and prevented them from getting a run. Yeah for Owen...

.. Back at last!

2008-04-21T17:17:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know it's been a really really long time since the last time I participated in my blog and I know all you out there have eagerly been awaiting an update.

What can I say, I have been super super busy with all kinds of projects that have needed my

undivided attention and that I cannot reveal at this moment in time for fear that the recipient of said project might read this. Needless to say I

have been so wrapped up in completing these tasks that the blog has been put on the back burner for a considerable time. Now I'm not saying that the projects are all complete, but some of them are almost there.

Not to mention a visit from Mum/Oma in the middle of this mix, kids and the school.

Owen starting baseball again with a huge commitment of practice 3 times a week, Morgan's Gymnastics, The talent show rehearsals 2 times a week, Piano

for the two of them, homework and the day to day house

keeping. Oh and did I mention the School's Art Show is 3 weeks away, for I have been in charge of designing, arranging for printing and packaging the 12 art cards that will be sold at the school. (The designs were the kids own artwork.) Then there were the t-shirts that needed to be designed and created. The Tattoo artwork, the press releases and the posting of the Art Show Posters around town. Phew, I'm tired just reading all that. On top of the top secret project that I'm working on, I have the end of year books that I am creating for Owen & Morgan's classes. Still I'm beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel, I've finished all the art cards, done the t-shirts, handed over the art work for the tattoos, and distributed all my posters today.

Owen is currently at baseball as I write. Both have finished their homework and so I'm taking a couple minutes to update all.

Weather here is still just plain weird, from snow, sleet, hail and the never ceasing rain we occasionally get the most glorious days of suns

hine. But they are few and far between and I can honestly say that I'm am past ready for some hot weather and blue sky. Still on one of those amazing days we took a trip the tulip farm in Woodburn and as you can see from the pictures they were just breathtaking.

A sad day!

2008-03-29T15:18:00.000-07:00

Yeah I know it's been a while since I blogged.. but then it's been a busy time what with the kids having spring break. Oma/Mum visiting and then the sad news about O.Piet's passing... so I felt it was necessary to check in as news like this just emphasizes the importance of keeping in touch with family and friends no matter in what format..

First and foremost, my heart goes out to Jolijn, Didi, Albertine & Sas even as this was expected the loss is still very real and the pain no less than if it had been sudden. We lost a really amazing man this week and heaven is a little richer because of it. He will be sorely missed but I truly believe he is smiling down on us as he lives on in our hearts and minds!

Rest in Peace Piet - Rest in Peace.

Darren the maniac

2008-03-05T14:25:00.000-08:00

Okay it is official.. Darren is certifiable! Seriously! Since he's been off work (oh about 3 weeks

now) he has redecorated the dining room, his office, ripped out the left over concrete walls of what looked suspiciously like a grave shaped septic or oil tank. (Our neighbor and I jokingly asked Darren if perhaps he had found a body in there - and then my neighbor went on to add if either one of us went missing that would be the first place they would look. I'm happy to say we're still both very much around.) After that he removed all the left over turf,hauled away over 6000 lbs of dirt and rubble, arranged to have the 10 yes count them 10 Italian Cypress trees removed, then leveled the ground, put in a sprinkler system, built two, Yes TWO, planter boxes, laid down over 1000 sq feet of new turf and is currently as I speak getting ready to finish off the pathways with pea gravel. (For my part - which really in the grand scheme of things wasn't all that much - I hauled and distributed all of the wood chip which had been delivered at the same time as the top soil & pea gravel. This then in turn motivated me to weed the front yard where the daffodils had sprouted as well as plant some new spring flowers)... And still he is busy doing... So again.. I say the man is a maniac and puts us all to shame..

Is it possible.. or has spring sprung?

2008-02-18T17:21:00.001-08:00

Seriously two full days in a row of beautiful glorious, gorgeous sunshine.. it was just a great way to spend the weekend.. as as you can see from these photos spring is definitely in the air up hear in Portland... you can tell from my blog that I love this weather and can say without a doubt in my mind that Portland is a great place as long as the sun is shining, the sky is blue and there is no RAIN. So we took advantage of the grand days and took the kids on a bike ride down by the river along the spring water corridor. It was really invigorating getting on our bikes and taking a ride and I had forgotten how much fun it was to get out. It was a little on the chilly side despite the sunshine,and not being familiar with the this part of town, we were a little stuck on finding somewhere to stop for lunch, especially as the kids didn't feel comfortable crossing the bridges to go to downtown Portland on their bikes... which considering they would be sharing the road with cars, I can't say I could blame them...

Finally

we managed to find our way to Burger King for a well deserved hamburger (of course all the good we did biking we immediately undid by eating this delicious (she says sarcastically) gourmet meal! Still beggars can't be choosers and eat we did before getting back on our bikes and biking back to our original starting point a good 3-4 miles non-stop to our car.

It was a really pleasant way to spend the day.

That was yesterday, today we took a second trip to Berkeley Park where I let Morgan loose with my camera and you may have noticed she now has a blog of her own, so you can check out her photos there. Also Owen & Darren practiced baseball as he has tryouts this Friday for his team. Anyway I'll leave you all with an image of Morgan & I hanging out together while the boys practiced.

And now time for a quick game of touch football.... but first -

2008-02-16T14:45:00.000-08:00

Check out this sunset.. seriously.. I had to snap this shot out from our back deck because it was just spectacular.. I was sitting (as I do a lot - much to the chargin of my kids) at my computer the other day and I happened to look up and out the window and this is what I saw...

Isn't it just beautiful!

On a whole other note; on one of the

few non raining days (I hesitate to say sunny as even though it

was glorious this

morning - the clouds have come in to gloom up the day), the kids and Darren decided to have an impromptu game of touch football out in the

front. Thought instead of writing loads I'd just show you the photos instead.

Can you believe these kids!!!

2008-02-14T14:00:00.000-08:00

Well today we had a field trip to the Oregon Humane Society as a treat for Valentine's Day! As Owen's teacher said, what better way to celebrate a day of love then by raising donations and funds for those who tend to be forgotten, so at the beginning of the new year, the kids of Owen's 3rd Grade class and those of one of the 4th Grade classes was given an assignment to raise donations for the Humane Society, and just check out what these kids achieved. The Humane Society informed us that this was the largest donation they had ever received in one day! Owen alone, raised upwards of $500 + in money and donations, so for all of you who donated a very big thank you from all involved.... The picture you see was just a fraction of the amount of food and donations that were raised... can you believe these kids? .... There were a lot of animals in need, and as you can see Shasta, was very happy to see us. And I'm glad to report, we found out someone had adopted her while we were visiting. Not so sure about these others who we got to meet.. oh well perhaps they will go to good homes soon. The people at the Humane Society did tell me that they have a very high adoption rate at the center so that is definitely good news for all the animals there.And as tempting as it all was to adopt, I told Owen and Darren, that there was no way we were adopting any animals... just as well Darren was there because there was this one dog Billy, who was very cute but I guess he'll be picked soon..... Happy Valentine's Day everyone...

Valentine's Day tomorrow...

2008-02-13T19:07:00.000-08:00

You know I was checking some past blogs and I realised it is a little over a year since I started this journey of posting the comings and goings of my life... A whole year! Wow! It doesn't seem at all possible that I've been at this for this length of time..

Well instead of waxing prophetic about this past year, I'll just let you in on some of our happenings in the past week... actually today is the first day that I don't ache from the delicious pain for excersion (Sp?) and it was worth the pain to feel the sun on my face, the icy cold whip through my hair, and to watch the kids excel effortlessly down a mountain.. oh and did I mention there was snow - lots of it! In case you hadn't guessed this already, for those a little behind on the uptake, we went for the first time to Mount Hood to ski- Timberline to be exact. And it was just beautiful.. and clear!

And really not that cold considering! We so totally lucked out with the weather too as from what I heard on the news tonight, we have had only one clear day the entire month of

February and that was last Saturday! It was an amazing day

of skiing, and the kids did incredibly well considering we skied for almost 5 hours (not straight I'll grant you). They were so pooped at the end of the day, that even the promised specialty hot chocolate up at the Lodge seemed to be too much effort for them to actually partake in. Still the sore muscles have healed and we are all raring to go again...

From Sledding to Basketball - what a great way to spend a day!

2008-02-02T18:43:00.001-08:00

I'd say.. and a great way to get away from the dreary wet rainy weather in Portland; so having made arrangements with some of Darren's co-workers we decided to spend the kids' day off from school at the snow; and we were not disappointed.. of course it took a little time to get there but once there the snow did not stop falling but that didn't stop us from getting into some inner tubes and racing down the hill; of course there were some very funny instances like when our friend Wilson decided to take a running leap onto his inner tube, only to bounce right off it again into the snow while his tube flew off down the hill.. or when Owen was most definitely having trouble with his tube and getting stuck every few feet and coming down the hill only to finally bounce off and roll down the hill... it was incredibly funny, however, Owen didn't find it any where near as funny as we did and got quite upset with us for laughing, but that of course only lead to a snowball fight and more craziness in the snow. Check out the pictures!And then on the other end of the day we headed to a Blazer's Game at the Rose Garden. They were playing the New York Knicks. We met up with some of Owen's friends (whose family we had invited - and who had never experienced a sporting event before) after a horrendous search for parking.. unfortunately both Owen & Morgan were quite tired from the day of sledding.. but it was an awesome game.. Throughout the game the Blazer's were trailing the Knicks which was incredibly disappointing as shot after shot they missed the basket, and for sure we thought they were going to lose. But that didn't negate the amazing atmosphere of the stadium, and of course the excitement increased every time the Blazer's caught up to the the Knicks and even though both kids were both starting to fade, when we got down to the last 50 secs (yes I did say 50's seconds) the Blazer's managed to bring the score up to 79 to 81, and literally in the last 20 seconds of the game the Blazer's equalized the score... the crowd went nuts and the game went into to overtime... To make things even more interesting the Blazers went on to win the game 94 to 85.. unfortunately, we didn't get to witness it as both Owen & Morgan at this point were toast and it was already 1038pm.. I knew they wouldn't last the extra 1/2 hour the game would take to finish... but it was still a blast. Perhaps next time we'll get to stay till the end!

A weekend at the coast in the rain and sun and wind....

2008-01-24T13:37:00.000-08:00

Well I know I'm a little late in posting this blog as it is almost the weekend again, but life is just busy, what with trying to get the arrangements made for this coming summer and having two class projects to work on and complete as well as having to organize (somewhat in advance) Owen's birthday treat (He wants to take some friends to a Blazer's game) not to mention all the rest of our day to day living, you know that boring stuff like laundry 3 times a week, house cleaning, walking the dog, grocery shopping... should I go on?.. No I don't think I should, anyway down to the nitty gritty..

Last weekend we went down to Lincoln City the kids & Milo to meet up with Darren who had been finishing shooting the movie he was working on "The Burning Plain", and after getting completely lost on the way down and having to break out the GPS which took me completely the long way round, we finally found ourselves at the hotel "Surftides" right on the beach. It was fantastic, with an ocean front room. At first there was some question about Milo being allowed into the room until the front desk realized who Darren was and who we were and then of course it wasn't an issue. As Darren still had a little work to do the kids and I decided to take Milo for a walk on the beach, which he thought was just the greatest thing ever especially as he didn't need to be on the leash... of course Owen wasn't quite so enamored about walking on the beach in the dark, but the still managed to find some shells and before long we were back in our room. Still it was dark and after dinner (which was just plain awful - why is it that hotel food is always bad unless it a 5 star and even then you can't guarantee it?) we headed back to the room where everyone promptly fell asleep - dog included. Next morning though the kids opened the curtains and were just simply fascinated by the fact that the ocean was right

outside our window as you can see -

from the bodies watching... anyway

after have a sumptious breakfast (definitely

made up for the night before) the kids and I

took Milo for a walk along the beach right

before the rain started to fall..So Milo had a good run along the beach sans a leash and found many interesting smells but like so many other dogs decided that he wanted to strike out on his own and would disappear up walk ways everytime to see where they would lead...

not something that was particularly fun as in the end I had to put him back on the leash so he would stay with us... still he had some fun while it lasted:Before we headed back to the hotel so the kids could take a dip in the pool - it was indoor of course otherwise they would've frozen like "little popsicle sticks" as Morgan likes to say... before heading out to lunch at Mo's (very famous for seafood apparently) where Owen discovered that he actually liked fish and chips and decided that he would have that for dinner if it was on the menu that night... after this we headed to the glass factory for thekids to make their very own glass floats that apparently are quite popular in this neck of the woods. (Darren had some extra work to do before hand hence the walk and swimming before the other stuff)... Of course as is common in beachy areas as well as Oregon in general, by now it was pouring with rain and we were very happy to get indoors to do something fun...

here are some shots of the kids making their very own glass

floats... which as you

can see was enormous fun and they even got to blow their own air inside the floats for

eternity or at the very least until they break... even Morgan was allowed to do this even though their was a big sign saying "Absolutely no children under the age of 8 allowed - no exceptions" so when asked her age and Darren told them she was 6 they

started to mention the policy to which he quickly replied actually 8 that was how old she is

.. but they knew and let her do it anyway... (So much for the "absolutely no exceptions rule!) Here is her end result...

After that we took another walk before along the cliffs to show us where Darren and his crew had been filming before stopping at the local salt water taffy shop for Morgan's favorite pit stop of the weekend - the CANDY STORE and then we headed back to the hotel for a bit of down time (and Sponge Bob) before heading back out again for dinner at the restaurant that the film had used that week in the movie...

And of course Owen had his fish and chips right off the menu and chowed down the whole lot.

The next morning was a complete turn around because even though we woke up to a pink sky with clouds (what's that old saying "Red sky at night - sailors delight, red sky in the morning - sailors warning") it turned out to be a gorgeous (if not extremely cold) day with blue blue skies -

so before we headed to pick up the glass floats that by now had cooled down from the day before, we took Milo out again for

another walk along the beach - check it out.

Of course we made one more stop for lunch before packing up and heading home via the Aviation museum where they house Howard Hughes airplane the Gray Goose.. this was Owen's

dream come true and I must say this museum was very impressive too...

It was impossible to photograph the entire plane as it pretty much took up the entire hanger with other planes positioned around it... still we had a great time but were very very happy to get home.. and thank goodness the kids had Monday off so we weren't completely wiped out for the school the following day.. anyway there you have it in a nutshell our trip to the beach in the middle of winter.. now it's back to a school week with extremely and I do mean extremely cold weather..

That's it for now.. more later.

...

Normalcy once more?

2008-01-14T15:48:00.000-08:00

So I really don't have anything very exciting to write about.. the kids are back in school. Darren is at the coast (Lincoln City to be precise) working on his movie "The Burning Plain". Morgan is doing her homework and Owen is taking his piano lesson, while I update the blog.It's a wet, wet Monday afternoon but there is an end in sight if the weathermen are to be believed we are due a whole week - yes I said it - one whole week of non-stop dry weather. I CANNOT WAIT.

Of course life is never really dull around here, what with teaching art to Morgan's 1st grade class about colors being warm and cool.. (an extremely exhausting venture - I do not know how teachers do it...) Tomorrow I'm working in Owen's 3rd grade class for their art class - I'm just helping not teaching this one... phew!

Still this weekend we will be heading down to Lincoln City ourselves to spend the weekend with Darren at the coast... it's supposed to be quite spectacular down there so I will be sure to take some photos...

Of course the big news of the week has to be the birth of Alessia - and to say that she looks like her dad is the understatement of this century.. I'm very happy for both Michael and Rita because she was a long time coming in every way and, in a way it seems fitting that the oldest grandchild should end up having the youngest great-grandchild - I see some symmetry in this - don't know about you. Still Michael and Rita are in for some huge changes in their lives but I guarantee that they will not ever remember a day without her in their lives and despite the many, and there are MANY, sleepless nights, they won't want to remember a time without her either. I still remember (she waxes philosophically) being told to cherish this first year because it will be over in the blink of any eye, and scoff as I did, everyone was right because it seems like it was just yesterday that I was holding Owen in my arms as a first time mother and now he is a strapping almost 9 year old with a 6 1/2 year old sister... I still miss those days of him snuggling on my shoulder

and the endless backache but not the dirty diapers - I can definitely do without those - sorry Michael - I've traded those in for stinky clothes instead - piles and piles of them.... Still each year brings a new era of change in our lives and we are looking forward to those changes in 2008.. And on that note, I shall bid you all a good evening till my next posting.. tata!

It's a girl!

2008-01-11T20:40:00.000-08:00

Okay I know it wasn't up to me to break the news but who can resist. All day long we have been waiting for the news and finally Beanie decided to make and appearance - okay technically her birthday is tomorrow (January 12th) but it is still January 11th here - So we celebrated by wetting the baby's head (metaphorically speaking seeing as we haven't actually met her yet and I live 6000 miles away from where she was born, and it is pretty impossible to get her hair (does she have any hair) wet from this distance) with a glass of wine. Okay so I am a little giddy at the prospect of being an aunt for the 3rd time.. and who would have thunk it now at this time of our lives. Way to go Michael and Rita on your new daughter... (no name yet - just Beanie to all of us in the know!) No photos as yet either... so in honor of Beanie's birthday... HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Woohoo - it's a girl!

From the sublime to the ridiculous - meet Milo the Snow dog.

2007-12-30T20:05:00.000-08:00

Okay so the second time was definitely the charm (to paraphrase) and this time we took Milo along for good measure, yes you've guessed it, we took another drive to the mountains in search of that elusive stuff called SNOW - you see Christmas day gave us a taste and we wanted more... and more is what we got and how, it was actually a beautiful day in Portland, the sun was even shining and no rain to be seen anywhere, so we once again packed up the car, this time dressing Pap in snow gear from head to toe - (Darren sacrificed his snow pants so Pap could stay dry.) Off we went once again to Mount Hood - only this time it started snowing before we got to the base of the mountain, and snowing, and snowing and really blizzard conditions snowing. A journey that usually takes an hour and 20 minutes turned into a 2 hour trek as we obviously weren't the only ones with this idea. Still we decided to try the same spot as we had previously and as soon as we let Milo out of the car he just wentbeserk with happiness and started running as hard as he could through the snow at amazing speed until he'd hit a snow bank and disappeared up to his shoulders into the snow with only his tail and head showing. He had a fine old time which is more than I could say for us as we battled the snow and the biting wind climbing up the hill to find a place to sled... and if wethought that the lack of rain would deter the sinking into the snow up to our crotch we were sadly mistaken. At least this time I didn't split my snow pants from laughing so hard. Mainly because I had just purchased new ones the day before and also it was too cold to laugh and after only 20 mins or so, Morgan was not having it anymore and decided she was just too cold and wanted to go home - even Pap dressed in his warm clothing was finding it a tad too chilly - I couldn't see anything between the fogging up of my glasses and the snow blowing in my face. After another 10 minutes ofthis torture, we headed back toward the car and as luck would have it Morgan found the perfect spot to sled - by then Owen had given up and had with Opa/Pap gone back to heat up in the car. So we decided perhaps we should find somewhere to eat lunch and warm up a bit. So we headed into Government Camp, the local town, to find a place to eat and the snow kept falling. So we left a pooped out Milo in the car in search of sustenance and found ourselves in a local restaurant that unfortunately took their sweet time in serving us. Still it gave us enough fortitude to try to brave the snow once more but by now it seemed that all of Portland had headed for the hills and we couldn't really find anywhere to park near the snow park wherethe kids could go inner tubing so we pulled out our trusted plastic sleds and headed with everyone else to sled down a snow covered street that everyone else was using with great success...and this time we couldn't get the kids back in the car. Of course with all these people there was the occasional wipe out but at least no one was seriously injured and Opa/Pap wisely decided to stay with Milo who at this point was quite happy to just eat the snow and have a good sniff as well as mark his territory. (You know what they say about eating yellow snow - DON'T). And still the white stuff fell from the sky.. and as much as the kids wanted to stay we decided that we needed to head home. So we loaded ourselves back into the truck and managed to shed various layers of clothing so we no longer resembled the michelin men - however after all the food we've been eating this holiday even removing the clothing layers didn't really help with that issue and after a cold day out in the snow the dinner we ate really didn't help our waistline but man it was most definitely well received and much welcomed and none of us seemed to get enough of it as we all got stuck into a sumptous pot of this:

And so ends our two weeks with Opa/Pap. It just flew by but I'm happy to say that his bruise is almost completely gone and he isn't as stiff as he was and hopefully the next time he comes to visit he doesn't take a fall right before he arrives. We've had a fine time with him and I know the kids will sorely miss him. Tomorrow we're getting up at the crack of dawn to take him to the airport for his 8.50am flight back to NY.

I think this may well be my last blog of the year as I don't anticipate writing again until next year... it's been an interesting year and an exciting one as well so to all who read my blog I wish you a glorious 2008 may your dreams and desires and ambitions and wishes all come to fruition in the days to come. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

It's over and it's only 363 days left till Christmas - Phew!

2007-12-29T14:44:00.000-08:00

And to make it official down came the tree today. I don't know why but this year, I had the urge to de-decorate the day after Christmas but I waited until today. I guess it's because on new year's day I'm flying with the kids down to L.A. for the 6 days and I didn't want to wait until we got back on the 6th. Not to mention I had some able bodied hands to help with the task - namely Pap and the kids. So the living room is kind of back to normal and looking a little sparse. It will take some re getting used to though. Still the outdoor christmas lights are still up and my intent is to get those down on New Years day first thing so we can still have those up for new years eve as we have some friends coming over for that event.

Anyway what about Christmas you say? Well it was actually very nice and somewhat to our amazement (and every one else in Portland) it actually snowed. Yes you did hear that correctly - it snowed and hard. Even stuck to the ground for a short period of time until the inevitable rain returned. Morgan was so excited that she came screaming down the stairs yelling "SNOW" at the top of her lungs... and went out with Darren and Milo for a brief walk in the white fluffy stuff.

But I should back up a little further to Christmas Eve which was spent getting last minute stuff things done and even had drinks with a few of our neighbors.

Then the kids got ready for Santa and as you can see he was very happy to receive the goodies they left behind so much so that he filled their

stockings to the brim, but

actually in his hurry left his main presents for them on the door step outside and not under the tree so the kids found their presents outside the front door on Christmas morning much to their delight. We were all thoroughly spoiled and received WAY too many goodies. Darren surprised me with the new Itouch IPod that really wanted as well as a bunch of new clothes. The kids got almost all the things they wanted on their list which really seems a little absurd but then there are so many relatives that like to purchase gifts for them. This year I'm not sure they even could pick out a favorite item.

I was surprised by a really HUGE hard drive for my pictures 1 terabyte - I didn't even know you could get hard drives that big.... with many thanks to both Mum, Pap and especially Michael as I am told he was the instigator of this gift. It will be most useful to dump all my accumulating photos that I take on a daily basis. On top of that we all got mounds of movies that we are still watching. Most of which Pap hasn't seen so he was delighted to view them with us. And not to be outdone by all the family, Darren prepared a delicious beef wellington with all the trimmings.. including roasted parsnips and carrots. We promptly finished off our meal with a homemade New York Style cheesecake baked by Darren from scratch. And I don't have a single photo to prove it other than our rather large round stomachs. - And I'm not photographing those I do have my limits you know.

Christmas Eve and all is quiet.. and no we don't even have a mouse

2007-12-24T15:15:00.000-08:00

at least not one that I know of ..... everyone is watching a movie "Rise of the Silver Surfer" while I'm adding to the blog.. in the quiet before the insanity of present tomorrow, not to mention I doubt I'll have the time, inclination or energy to blog tomorrow. Today saw a last minute dash to the market to pick up the meat for tomorrow's dinner (we're having beef wellington oh yum!) and bread for Owen's famous garlic bread for tonight. Yeast for Darren's annual chocolate brioches that he makes for breakfast... he's also making a cheesecake for dessert too - Pap's favorite, a change from fruit christmas pud. (Although truth be told I actually like the old Christmas pudding, but I forgot or didn't find or look for it this year - also lacking unfortunately are our Christmas crackers - Pooh!!)

Anyway before we did that we decided to take the dog for a jaunt to the park and Owen met up with some of his school friends for a quick game of field hockey although I think he got a little confused how to play the game as he kept kicking at the ball instead of hitting it with the hockey stick.

Morgan headed straight for the monkey bars.. she's a little Monkey after all... and Milo met up with his friends and promptly marked his territory by peeing on a little dog's head. I don't think his owner was too thrilled by that.

We're having some friends over for a quick drinky tonight and Morgan is dying to put on a fancy dress. But I think more importantly both of them can't wait for the annual opening of open present tonight...and lets face it even before Santa's arrival, we already have way too many presents under the tree..

as you can see from this small sample in the photo

...well to all of you have a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and I'll be writing more sometime soon.....

'Twas the night before the night before... you know that day

2007-12-23T19:35:00.000-08:00

Okay we have done some crazy things in our lifetimes, but today without a doubt takes the biscuit, cake and any other food item you care to use for my current metaphor.. today we decided to head for Mount Hood to visit the famous Timberline Lodge that was built during the depression under the WPA. It's a beautiful Lodge and we thought that Pap might enjoy seeing it as well as getting in some sledding.. okay so far so good.. we set out early around 10 as it's about an hour and half drive and as usual it was raining.. no big deal we thought because as we head for the higher elevation that rain was surely going to turn to snow... it's colder the further up the mountain you go right? WRONG! NOT today... in fact even Timberline which is at an elevation of 6000 ft it was still raining.. and how.. okay so we parked the car and walked through what would've have been a blizzard if in fact it had been snowing, instead rain.. pouring rain.. and made our way into the Lodge which was really something.. (I and am sure the others were soaked through) This Lodge really is a testament to the craft men who carved, built, designed and generally produced a masterpiece of workmanship, from what we saw of this lodge it was really something. We even managed to get into the dining room to eat a hardy lunch... The snow was actually half way up some of the windows of the second floor - even the rain couldn't melt the snow that quick.. The kids were enchanted by the fact that their Christmas tree spanned 2 floors, which was very reminiscent of Heidehof times... (Although the tree was no where near as magnificent as the trees I remember from my child hood).Okay you're wondering where the crazy came in right??? Well we had promised the kids we would take them sledding so we decided to drive further along to Mount Hood Meadows ski area and along the way we found a snow play area and stopped.. At this point it was really torrential rain and yet some how this didn't seem to deter us.. we donned on our ski pants and jackets and boots and walked up a pretty steep hill of snow.. however... because of the rain we kept sinking into the snow and several times got stuck. In fact at one point Morgan lost her boots in 2 feet of snow not once or twice but three times, I was laughing so hard at the situation that my pants bust open..

it was so ridiculous and funny, Morgan didn't know whether to laugh or cry and Pap just stood there getting wetter and wetter.. . and Darren and Owen had disappeared up the hill to sled.. I looked at Pap and realized that he had to get into the car to dry as he was soaked through.. so I took Morgan up the hill where she proceeded to sled in the pouring rain and got the keys from Darren before carefully making my way down the hill back to a now drenched Pap and the car.

At this point there was NO WAY I was going back up the hill so I also got into the car, helped Pap strip down to his skivvys (Okay he was wearing thermals) and managed to dry a little while waiting for the completely insane Demetre clan to get back from their sledding expedition... The rain followed us all the way home... And after everyone got dry, Darren made us a very very nice dinner of steak and rissotto... YEAH for Darren..

It was a crazy crazy wet day... now I know that all the Oregonians have advised me to continue with our plans despite the weather, but I don't think I will ever want to go sledding in the pouring rain again...

And all because of a cap....

2007-12-19T14:37:00.000-08:00

Okay this is going to be a supremely quick blog as I have to pick up the kids in about 10 mins so I don't have a lot of time.. but needless to say, you have all by now heard the story of Pap and his fall in San Diego (No I did not push him down the stairs), this all happened because he wanted to buy a new cap for himself to keep his head warm and they went out to the Gap no less to purchase one.. Now I can tell you that aside from the fall which was considerably worse than he is letting on.. see for yourself.. it was alarming to hear and see the end result. I have told him to call the doctor again as his bruise is now spreading.. Pap is definitely not his usual spry self and getting in and out of the car is most definitely a bit on the difficult car. Poor Owen now travels with his knees by his ears as we've pushed the seat back as far as we can so he can get in and out of the car easier... Now don't flood us with phone calls ... I know you have the phone in your hand, he is okay and with enough Arnica gel that we are putting on him on a regular basis, I'm sure it will heal itself in time.... now you might be wondering why I mentioned the cap... well lets just say it's Christmas and well presents are giving at Christmas and what do you think the odds are that THIS christmas someone had purchased him a new cap.... Yes ME!!! so you see this could all have been avoided if someone had just waited... (although I have to tell you it is a very stylish had that he sacrificed his right butt cheek for) Okay that is it... now I must get the kids...

a new christmas story ...... Milo & Monkey ... oh and more christmas stuff

2007-12-15T18:53:00.000-08:00

Okay so now the lights are all up and decorations are pretty much done, but still we decided we needed to hang just a few more lights. Morgan desperately wanted some colored lights up this year so as a sucker I got some and wrapped them around the maple tree... and then we decided we'd paint our pine cones with silver spray paint! That was particularly fun as it ended up all over my hands and I looked a little like my hand had been dipped in silver paint that only paint thinner was able to remove.. and no I didn't get a picture of that...

I also finished packing up my little boxes of cookies for our neighbors so now I just have to deliver them..

Yesterday evening the kids and Darren went to see a Blazers game (NBA Basketball for those of you not in the know) and they had a great time especially as the Blazers won.. me, well I was all up for a night out with some of my new friends... but... sniff.. alas... none were available so there was poor little me, wondering the streets of Downtown Portland (The Pioneer Square Mall).. looking sadly at all the sparkly lights (played with the new touch screen IPod and IPhone - SWEET) pathetically coverting all the pretty displays in the windows (after trying on a bunch of clothes - didn't buy anything) ... I wondered into an establishment for nourishment... on my own (Yum Sushi at the sushi bar)... before getting into my car and heading home for a night at home coloring my hair... (okay I can't put a spin on that one as I really did do that... hey wait a minute I got to eat chocolate while I was waiting for the color to set... yay.)

Anyway Pap gets in tomorrow the kids are VERY excited about him visiting especially in the new house...

On a whole other note, I was feeling sorry for Milo as he had managed to destroy every toy he had, and as Christmas was coming I thought, he should wait for his presents like everyone else, but he was looking kind of depressed so I bought him an early Christmas present, a monkey hanging from a rope, well needless to say he just loves this toy - unfortunately he managed to rip the monkey off the rope (maybe he wanted two toys who knows - )

still I decided I'd fix the monkey and sewed him back together again... (I know, I know how long is that going to last you ask... still) this is the end result... an armless monkey... well you can't really argue with the happiness of Milo and his monkey... hopefully whatever Santa brings will last longer than a day...

...Hey I can dream can't I?

and that concludes the story of

Milo and Monkey!

Finding the perfect tree

2007-12-09T17:53:00.000-08:00

So this was the weekend to do it, and lets face it with just a little over two weeks till the big man himself pays us a visit (or so the kids hope) it was definitely time, so after showers and breakfast this morning (yummy cinnamon rolls) we hopped into the truck and drove ourselves out to a Christmas tree farm in search of the perfect tree. It certainly felt a little christmassy with all the frost on the ground. There we were in our wellies, trudging through the rows and rows of Christmas trees as our feet got colder and colder... and then the snow started to fall, so it was now or never, the trek for the perfect Christmas tree of 2007 had begun in great earnest. Owen was the first to discover what he thought would be the best tree, but as you can see it just wasn't really big enough, and then

Morgan spotted what she thought would be a phenomenal tree.... (perhaps in her bedroom).. definitely not the right size. So the hunt continued over the frozen ground, which was made just that bit colder when Morgan would sneak up behind us and put ice down our backs... the toes continued to get colder and the tree still eluded us - we none could agree and Darren just wanted to get it over with and cut down anything, but what do you know.. it seems he had found the perfect tree after all....

can you hear the tada, and trumpeting sound of success as there before our very eyes was the tree of our dreams and all we had to do was cut it down.... a task it was to prove, a little easier said than done. First Morgan tried to saw the tree, and then Owen and, with the extra muscle power of Darren down came the tree..... TIMBER!!!! Not before another shower that of pine needles down the the back of Darren's neck... Time for a quick picture of our new addition... and it was off to pay, load and return the saw to the farm owners and a quick drink of hot apple cider

(most definitely welcomed with the now frozen toes - I think we all thought about putting our feet into the hot apple cider just to warm them up) And then it started to snow harder.. so we decided to call it a day and head back to our toasty warm house to take on the task of decorating the tree.......

So home we went and the task of bringing up and sorting through the decorations began.. Both Owen and Morgan were tremendous helpers lugging up the huge box of Christmas ornaments up the stairs from the basement. We sorted through all the Christmas lights and plugged them to test them, and then managed to hang them along with all the other decorations that we had (there seem more and more each year) That could be because every year the kids get a new ornament themselves and I put a photo of the kids on the tree from each year.... Of course this didn't go completely without a hitch, we managed to break a couple of ornaments this year and probably would've have broken more if some hadn't bounced. Lucky for me as I'm the one who dropped most of them... Klutz that I am. Poor Morgan broke one of my ornaments and was so upset that she ran upstairs to hide in her bed... so I found her and said not to worry, I'd put a giant hook on her and hang as my ornament instead.. she thought that was very funny but pointed out to me that she was probably to heavy for the tree...ah well such is life... Anyway we finished the decorating and here is the end result... the search for the perfect Christmas tree is at an end and now we have the PERFECTLY Decorated CHRISTMAS TREE. Happy holidays to all.

Now it's just foggy...

2007-12-05T10:09:00.000-08:00

Okay I promise I will stop going on about the weather .. one of these days.. Still we're still here and we have power so we can be grateful for small mercies..But apparently we had a freakish amount of rain even for the Pacific Northwest in 2 days the rainfall in our neck of the woods was 6.60 inches, which is 3 times what California got entirely last year..... unfortunately our basement starting seeping water again, we even went over to our neighbors house to talk to her about her gutters because they are leaking so bad that the run off is contributing to the water leakage.
On a whole other note I'm waiting patiently, I think, for the plumber to get back to me about our pot filler that he was supposed to attach to the wall today but didn't have the right tools.. the story of our lives with regard to the kitchen, nothing is ever simple. And Darren is getting very.. very frustrated with it..I don't blame him, he's at work all day and then gets home and has to move the 600 lb stove about... don't ask. Anyway our stools finally arrived yesterday and I (yes that would be me) put all four of them together myself... and they look pretty good if I say so myself. My trusty helper Owen, helped me by picking up the boxes and plastic so that we could get rid of the mess before D got home.

Well that's it for now.. nothing new to report.. the plumbers are back.. but not with good news.. I will up date later....

Christmas is coming and rain is coming down

2007-12-02T16:21:00.001-08:00

I knew it was too good to last - the rain has officially come back and I guess this shouldn't be any surprise seeing as we do live, after all, in Portland. Still it couldn't have come on a worse weekend - I had a photo shoot to do today - a paying gig at that, and the weather was just so awful that I had to go to my client's house to shoot the photos and I'm sure anyone who knows kids, it is incredibly to photography children in available light when they are moving and your light is low - I don't have any fancy lights to set plus I like to use natural light. So out 295 photos I only really had about 44 decent photos that I could post that were in focus. Pity because these kids were extremely photogenic. Still I might be able to go back next weekend to try again, but I'm worried about the turn around in terms of getting their pictures to them in time for Christmas. Ah enough of those woes - but to top it off we were going to go to a Christmas tree farm today to pick out our Christmas tree for the house, and I thought how cute it would be to get the christmas card photo of the kids doing that - no such luck. It's way too wet. So we will attempt to try this idea again next week - come rain or shine.

On a different note the kitchen is pretty much done.. I mean with the exception of them coming tomorrow to repolish the silestone tomorrow there is nothing really left to be done except the installation of the pot filler tap above the stove and the installation of the back splash for the stove that arrives on Tuesday..

The kids even had the opportunity to make and decorate some gingerbread cookies - see the photos. I will post some photos of the finished kitchen once everything is done...

Turkey Lurkey Day

2007-11-22T19:27:00.000-08:00

Yum.. Dinner is over, we've stuffed ourselves silly and eaten way too much delicious, scrumptious turkey, and mash and all the trimmings and now it's time to veg out in front of the TV falling into a turkey induced coma... Okay we haven't really done that. Actually instead we took a great walk around Reed College (the weather was beautifully sunny and crisp and EXTREMELY cold) - Milo even got to get off the lead and run around himself and the kids got to have a good runaround before it was time to eat way way too much food. Darren pulled out all the stops today and whipped up an amazing turkey dinner in our brand new oven which was repaired in the nick of time yesterday afternoon. The kitchen is almost finished.,. I'm sitting in the kitchen at my desk now typing this blog - Monday the countertops are being installed and on Tuesday the plumbers come back to hook up the final part of the faucet, then on Friday the floor guys come back one last time to finish off the floors for us. We are still waiting for the back-splash on our stove which has been on back order for what seems like forever. We've picked out the tile and hopefully that will be in for pickup sometime next week and Darren will have a chance at the weekend install it hopefully before Pap arrives in two weeks. I cannot believe how fast this year has whizzed by... I am in no way ready for Christmas this year. I haven't even thought that far, by now I'm usually done and the Christmas cards are written and sent - or at least ready to send. I can't even get my head around this fact. I'm hoping next week to take the kids to a tree farm so we can do our Christmas card - otherwise I will have to come up with something else and fast.

I've been busy also finishing off my "Beautiful World" Shopping bags to sell at the School's Home Tour Boutique which is in 2 weeks from tomorrow and I still need to finish off my tiles. I plan to get as many of those done this weekend so that I won't be in a mad rush over the next couple weeks. Yikes... Where oh where has this year gone I feel like it's accelerated at a break neck speed. Could we just hit pause so I can catch up please.

Oh yes as if that isn't enough Morgan lost her second tooth today after wiggling it around - I didn't even know it was loose - and then she lost it quite literally on the stairs of course Darren came up trumps finding it just before bedtime - although Morgan had already written a note to the tooth fairy explaining that she dropped her tooth on the stairs, but she was very relieved to have found it in time for the night. Okay that it's it. Going to go veg in front of the TV now... ta ta

Going around (the) BEND

2007-11-13T13:59:00.000-08:00

Not just figuratively but literally we went round Bend this past weekend. A town/city 3 hours east of Portland where you can see almost all of the tall mountains of Oregon, along the cascades. Especially as on Saturday it was overcast and cloudy, unlike Sunday which was crisp clear and beautiful if not a little on the cold side. Bend is considered to be high desert and it sits on the Deschutes river. It was very picteresque. We had to be out of the house because of having the floors refinished in the kitchen. So we bundled ourselves off to Bend with the kids and the dog, drove up and around Mount Hood through the countryside of Oregon. It was really quite amazing. You don't expect to see such contrast in Oregon, to me it always seems to be lush and wet and green but once you got past the mountains and head east the surroundings changed quite dramatically to a much drier and sparse enviroment.We arrived a little later than planned on Friday afternoon and decided to explore downtown Bend itself and had dinner at The Pine Tavern which was very nice and we lucked out having no reservation we managed to snag a cancellation and got to eat right away. It was an interesting place as part of the restaurant was built around two pine trees that were growing in the middle of the room. The following day we decided to venture to on a cave tour. There I was thinking it would be with stalagmites and the such came with camera in tow only to find out it was a tour of the lava caves under ground and completely dark. Not only was I not dressed for such an adventure, I found it a little daunting being underground in the pitch black with only the lights on the provided helmets to guide us through the caves. Being somewhat caustrophobic I had show no fear or the kids would've have completely freaked out. But they thought it was great and enjoyed it immensely even after a bat whizzed past my ear in the dark. I drew the line on sliding on my belly to get to the another part of the cave and waited with another family while Darren, Owen & Morgan and the guide disappeared into the darkness to continue their exploration. I was very VERY happy when we got back however, to terra firma that was under my feet and not above my head and we got to be outside again. It was definitely an adventure and the guide was extremely informative.

Sunday after a very nice breakfast indeed we headed out to the High Desert Museum, which was also very interesting and the kids really enjoyed going to the old homestead where a couple of ladies (pretending to be) from the 1800 were sitting making candles and stew and doing needlepoint. They also got to check out the sleeping river otter and a bunch of birds of prey before we headed back to rainy old Portland and a very nicely finished floor resplendant with a house full of dust. As nice as this kitchen is going to be I cannot wait until it is finally dust free. THere is a fine layer of dust all over this house and it's a losing battle.Yesterday - Monday, Darren got stuck in putting in the cabinets that arrived friday and today they came to measure for the countertops and the plumbers came by to hook up the dishwasher, sink water to the refridgerator and the waste disposal. YEAH... we still need to pick out tile and finish painting the trim but I finally see a light at the end of the tunnel. Of course Thanksgiving will be a challenge as we are STILL missing pieces from the stove and will not have countertops in until after turkey day... should be very interesting.

Owen scores a goal, Morgan loses a tooth and Halloween all in one week.

2007-11-05T17:47:00.000-08:00

Phew what a week.. Darren finally made it home on Halloween morning at 1030am after leaving Palm Springs the night before at 6pm.. not an auspicious start to the week. Plus we had his dad and girlfriend come for a visit and actually arrived before he did. I picked them up from the airport and we managed to carve the rest of the pumpkins and then sit down to a pot of stew for dinner only to find (much to my horror) that Nancy doesn't eat meat - at least not beef. Then we got stuck into the madness of Halloween once Darren had managed to squeeze in an hour or so of sleep, while I drove to Krispy Kreme's to purchase 24 + 6 glazed doughnuts for Owen's classroom, only to race back again to go and watch the big Halloween parade at the school followed by the numerous parties that I was to photograph for each grade.
After which we came home and they all got stuck in decorating the yard. It wasn't as crazed as last year with Milan but busy enough and we had a ton of compliments on our graveyard. Of course, I was a little freaked out by that fact that we had burning candles and nothing to stop the kids from walking into a burning flame, so next year we need to figure out something different because I could just see the costumes going up in burst of flames. Even so the night was not without a little drama as Owen got really mad at me because he lost me in the crowds but as with every year, their favorite part was not really the trick or treating but the handing out of candy and by the end of the night, our house was definitely the place to be as they were handing out armfuls of candy so that we could get rid of it before calling it a night.

The rest of the week was a little less crazy, I had a photo shoot to do with one of the girls in Owen's class and I'm happy to report that her mom was very happy with the results. Although I had a heck of a time uploading them to the website Pictage, still if she is true to her word I might get some more clients out of her. Here's hoping. I managed to finish Lisa's photobook for her mom, and now just need to design 4 sets of 4 coasters (and make them) and figure out my bag that I finally finished the design on. Me busy? Nah.... Saturday morning, Morgan finally lost her first ever tooth. Lots crying at the sight of blood and squeals of delight when the tooth fairy brought money the following day. Still if you look at where she lost her tooth you would be hard pressed to see it missing as her new tooth is already growing in and has replaced the missing already.

Then Sunday morning at their last soccer match of the season on a team that has sorely lacked the aggression needed to win, (and alas this day was not unlike any of the others) Owen finally playing center forward with the help of his team mate Tate, scored his very first goal ever. It was the most amazing sight for me, especially as I think that next year he will end up playing his strengths which belong without a doubt in the defending position.

Is there light at the end of a rainbow?

2007-10-21T09:44:00.000-07:00

Okay does it seem odd to you because it does to me that an inanimate object can depress some one as much as it is me.... Yesterday was the start of a particularly horrendous day when the delivery people of the stove finally showed up at 7.15 in the morning... it was still dark for goodness sake. On top of that it was... yes you've guessed it... raining. I had to lock poor Milo in the basement as these 4 huge guys struggled to bring my 615lb stove up the stairs into the house into the kitchen. It did help that they took off the doors first and removed all the oven racks etc... but then as they are bringing it into my house, two of the knobs fell off - they were broken thank you very much and it took them almost an entire hour plus 2 more guys to put the oven doors back onto the stove before they left, with the stove not flush against the wall, finger prints all over the stainless steel doors and I noticed that the base of the stove that covers the installation was completely missing. Being a Saturday I couldn't get hold of anyone in customer service to complain. On top of that part of my order was missing. I don't know about you but when you spend $8,000 (yes I did say $8,000) on a stove you expect it to be in one piece in pristine condition. I am not happy about it. And now every time I walk into the kitchen I get depressed all over again because I see this monstrous stove in my house and did I mention that I am not happy about it. Maybe it's just that it's reminding me of all the work we still need to do in there and in a very short period of time... I don't know what it is, but now I don't like my kitchen.

On top of that I'm down stairs doing the laundry and notice that my wall is seeping water from all the rain into the laundry room. Thank god we have a drain in there, but that can't be good. And finally the icing on the cake, while trying to unblock a toilet yesterday - don't ask, I flush and water pours out the back of the tank onto the floor. I just couldn't catch a break.,

Oh well I guess there is a light at the end of the rainbow - am I mixing my metaphors? but the rain did stop briefly for a rainbow to come out... check out the photo...

Well I'm corralling the kids into picking and raking up leaves so got to dash... it's one way to keep me out of the kitchen!

Another day... another raindrop!

2007-10-17T15:48:00.000-07:00

Okay it's official the weather in Portland sucks!... but hey at least we have water, I was reading online today how the South-east of this country is in a serious drought that they might run out of water soon so I guess I can be thankful for small mercies or in their case a huge one.

I'm sitting here listening to Owen play piano with his new piano teacher and I think Owen likes him, so we'll see how this goes. He's young with a new baby and he only gets 30 mins a week but they maybe the best for Owen.

Morgan is still at a school doing cool school - Mad Science, I hope she's having a good time and then we need to pick her up in a few minutes so I can then get Owen over to soccer. Phew! Tired just talking about it.

Any way here is a picture of Morgan and believe it or not this is a manmade rain picture as even though I had a photo assignment to do about water, there wasn't any rain last week during the time I needed to complete the project.
Enjoy.

Visiting the pumpkin patch

2007-10-13T11:02:00.000-07:00

Thursday was field trip day for Owen's class and we took a quite scenic drive down through Oregon City to Bauman Farms. The kids had a blast. The learnt how to make fresh apple cider, ran around playing in the maze and ate Cider apple doughnuts before hoping on the hayride and heading to the pumpkin/corn fields to pick out their own pumpkin, gourd and indian corn to bring home. It was quite something trapezing (sp?) through the mud looking for the perfect pumpkin.
Difference in Oregon is that they are not all placed in neat rows of pumpkins ready for you to pick out the perfect pumpkin, here you have to really look for them. My only major complaint is that the field didn't seem so big and the kids didn't get a ton of time to explore the farm. Perhaps it was because it was a week day, because not all the attractions were open and Owen was quite disappointed he couldn't go on the zip lines. But we lucked out with the weather, and I promised them we'd go back on the weekend for them to try out all the fun activities they have, so we're going to go with out neighbors the Reilly's tomorrow.

Yesterday was a school free day for the kids and we managed to have a blast. We started the day making a video of the house for the kids to send to their friends (Only problem being I don't have the cables to transfer the film to my computer for editing, so I had to go to ebay to buy the cable - shipping cost more than the cable but it was still under $6 so oh well). After that we mowed the lawn, picked up the leaves, put up our halloween decorations (pre- Darren of course) made ghost cookies, did some art work for my eco-bag project and that was all before 3 o'clock. I was exhausted by then so the kids ended up watching some TV while I finished the laundry et al... I did get to go out for a girls night out with Alecia, we headed downtown to have sushi at the Dragonfish - which was really good and then went across the street to see the movie "Michael Clayton" which was excellent. Highly recommend that movie if you like intelligent films. So there you are up-to date with my latest and greatest... life as usual is busy, busy, busy!

Rain.. rain and yep you've guessed it.. more rain.

2007-10-09T10:24:00.000-07:00

So okay we are officially into the wet weather. I knew it was going to rain and I kind of welcomed it. But I can see this is going to be a very long winter. And adjusting to it, is going to take some time. Still with this wet weather has come the cold, unseasonably so I am told and as a result the leaves have begun to change and are quite spectacular. Darren who has been gone 10 days now, is really bummed because he is missing out on the leaf change and I'm not sure we will have that many by the time he gets back at the end of October. But you never know.

The kids are loving it sort of. Although they have complained it is too cold, but now that they have their wellie boots puddle splashing is a definite must. The other day we went on a walk to go check out the fall colors. Here are some of our photos

As you can see the kids are on the hunt for the perfect leaf.

And there are soo many to choose from. This here is Morgan & mine favorite tree. But as you might have guess that also changes as the leave change too.Especially as they turn a firey red.

Edward the Confessor comes home....

2007-09-29T14:54:00.000-07:00

Oh and Devon is here too... what a dramatic weekend so far and it's only part way through Saturday. We get back from Owen's soccer game (which they lost 6 goals to 3) oops... Owen was feeling a little skitish from his turn as goalie last weekend when he got kicked in the face... but they certainly did a lot better in the second half...

Still after getting more food for Edward, who'd knocked over his food last night, I went up to the bedroom to discover that Edward was no where to be seen... the little bu....er had escaped. Of course Owen went into a complete tizzy as he couldn't find him and is after all responsible for his well being...thank goodness for Uncle Devon who kept calm and found him hiding under Owen's bed... so now he's safe and sound with a book on top on his home to prevent him getting out again.

Meanwhile the kitchen is now in the midst of hole city.. as the boys finish the work they have started. I'm just hoping that before they both leave tomorrow there aren't as many holes in the kitchen...

We had our first major rain since arriving... and the temperature dropped almost 20 degrees so I guess Fall is officially here. Still today it's clear but I'm told it's a brief respite. So far so good.

Interestingly I talked to one of Owen's team mates(who also happens to be in Owen's Class) mom they moved here a year ago from Montana and she was telling me that she is only now feeling like this is her home... It took a whole year to stop feeling like she was on an extended vacation. That's how I feel a lot of the time...it's weird especially as you have all of your things around you, I keep thinking this is temporary and we'll be back in South Pasadena soon... Oh well. Anyway here are some of the portrait shots I took for my photo assignment this week.
Oh yeah and I guess it's time for you to meet
EDWARD THE CONFESSOR:

And into Fall we... um.. fall?

2007-09-25T11:35:00.000-07:00

Okay fall has come and gone and still we await the rain. Not that I'm complaining the days here have been glorious and I don't particularly look forward to the rain still it looks threatening.

Anyhoo... this past week we had Open house at the school.. which is a little puzzling to have so early in the year, but it was nice to talk to the teachers and get a feel as to how the kids are doing. We also got to go the parent orientation and have as some of you already know been bombarded with the first, (they promise) of many fundraisers for the school.

The kids are jazzed because everytime they sell something they get a chainlink pen.. don't ask..but lets face it who doesn't need a pen from time to to time.

Darren has been very busy with the remodeling of the kitchen which is coming along nicely. We've ordered all the appliances and are in the process of ordering cabinets and countertops. Yesterday we picked out and up our sink and faucets from a local plumbing store that turned out to be far less expensive than Home Depot. I guess you can still get a deal at smaller stores around town. Yipee.

Day after tomorrow Devon will be coming into town to help Darren with the remodel and then on Sunday D will be on a job for the month of October, getting back in time for Halloween much to both his and the kids delight - Halloween is a big deal for them.

This past weekend we went to the
Pirate Festival, which was a blast. The kids also got to try their hand at rock climbing and both managed to almost reach the top, a particularly remarkable feat for Owen who has a fear of heights. Then on Sunday we headed out to the Fruit Loop (just writing that makes me laugh everytime) to try to go apple picking but we kind of struck out in that regard and ended up only being to pick out a pumpkin or two and buy pre-picked apples. Still it was out by the Mount Hood area which was neat and very pretty.So there we are up-to-date.. class last night was interesting in so far as I learnt what I did wrong and I think I now know how to correct it. I'm not too sure about the teacher, he's nice enough but not particularly (I don't know what word i"m looking for..) warm? Anyway I don't feel like I've really clicked with him but maybe that is just my own insecurities coming out and perhaps you aren't suppose to click with your teacher. Who knows.

Edward the confessor has been missing from school lately, he's been misbehaving and so had to go away for some re-training but fear not, he's still due home with us this weekend...
More later.

One Month on....

2007-09-14T20:29:00.000-07:00

It's exactly one month today that we left South Pasadena, and from what I'm hearing it was just in time. They were hit with a horrendous heat wave in triple digits shortly after we left. Of course it's been glorious here with only one night of rain... yeah I know it will only get worse as winter approaches but I'm enjoying the outside while I can. Milo too, who one early morning a week ago was greeted by these 3 little critters who he chased up a tree.
It was quite a sight and the kids were just delighted telling all their classmates at school about it. Last weekend saw the start of soccer season for Owen who got stuck right in as goalie. (His favorite position). I guess this is the first year they actually have goalie up here so he is quite the star with his two previous years experience under his belt. It's been a slow process in the friends making department for Owen, who had already bonded with the boy next year, a 7 year named Nathan, who is actually in 1st grade, but the two seem to have crushes on each other. Last weekend the kids were invited along to his birthday party and poor Morgan was the only girl there for most of the party. Hey she didn't seem phased especially as there was an ice cream cake and goodie bags and Owen was in heaven as it was a science party. Unfortunately he's not so quick to make friends in his own class, I have a feeling he's a little overwhelmed by the kids who already have friends from before. Still they seem to be enjoying school having already made cookies in a solar oven (who'd have thunk that would work up here) and a s'mores fest too. Morgan wasn't happy that her class didn't get to partake until the cookies came out today as a treat. We're already signed up to bring Edward the Confessor home for a weekend to look after... who might that be?.. I'll keep you posted on that one.

I started my own digital photography class and even though I have had a week to do my assignment I have been completely uninspired by the light and need to go and take my 50 photos of which I have to pick my favorite 8. I'm not allowed to use any settings except the P, S, A or M setting in other words am not allowed to cheat with the Auto pictures. I'm trying to learn how to use the settings correctly but old habits are hard to break. Classes are on Monday evenings from 7-9.15pm. It's fun to be in school again but I do find it a little intimidating language especially as I cannot get my head around F-stops and shutter speed. The course is only 8 weeks long which just doesn't seem long enough to learn everything there is to know about my camera and lighting. Still I'll keep you posted with my photos as I get them.

Also this week Darren has ripped out the remains of the deck and the cupboard in the kitchen which is now a hugh space. But the down side is that it seems I'm allergic to all that dust or have developed asthma as a result. I can't get into see a doctor until October because they are backed up until then. So I'm hacking and wheezing a great deal. Taking a daily dose of Claritin as suggested by the local pharmacy. I'll survive.

Well am finished for now. Will write later.

Here comes the first day of school

2007-09-04T21:13:00.000-07:00

Well here it is the first day of school tomorrow for the kids. I'm sure ready for it not so sure about them. On top of that Owen has his first soccer practices tomorrow night too, followed by not one or two but three games on Saturday starting at 3.30pm for 20 mins every hour through 5.30pm. Not sure I'm too happy about that, thank god Morgan decided to withdraw. All I have to do now is get her refund and enroll her in Gymnastics.

Kids already have a party to go to this weekend at our neighbors house. That didn't take long.

Darren is busy finishing the pantry... the house reeks of paint, which is giving me quite a headache. Still he had help from Morgan.

The house is starting to come together finally.

Well that all for today. Later!

2 weeks in Portland...

2007-09-03T09:40:00.000-07:00

Who would have thunk it that it has been 3 weeks since the moving trucks came to pack up and move us to a new state and a new chapter in our lives.... and after a few rocky momemts things are beginning to settle down, although I still can't find my darn vases for all those amazing flowers I have either purchased from the awesome Farmer's Market or have been given by our first dinner guest. Of course there are still the endless boxes that need to be unpacked and the remodel that is already underway. Darren is busy trying to finish the pantry, but all this has been interspersed with trips to the State fair in Salem (1 hour south of Portland) bike rides along the Springwater Corridor down by the Willamette River on a beautiful sunny... yes I did say Sunny... day as well as a fantastic trip to the beach which among others, Milo thought was the greatest adventure. Of course the beaches aren't as close as in LA but I have to say soooo much prettier in the sun, the water is just BLUE. The neighbors have all - yes all - turned out to be very nice and welcoming, we even received a plate of cookies on our doorstep from one neighbor who has a 7 year old boy who will also be going into 1st grade (alas not Morgan's class) but has made fast friends with Owen. So they both have friend now, although not in their grades.

School starts Wednesday and I'm sure that will all change again.

Day 2

2007-08-17T20:46:00.000-07:00

So it started out aupicious, other than the lack of sleep. We went to the house for our mattress delivery and then met with the painter and insurance adjuster. Then we left Milo in the back yard while we went out an about to Costco to get Milo a new dog bed and to get bedding for us (new bed king size need sheets extra), also stopped at Lowes to pick up some plants only to return home to have my neighbor tell me she had called animal control as she didn't know whose dog was in our back yard and he was barking at her dog. When I explained that he was our dog and we were in the process of moving in and I suggested that her dog and milo meet she blew me off and didn't even bother to introduce herself to me. I don't even know her name. Welcome to the neighborhood.

Anyway we finally got back to the hotel and the kids went swimming. Which they really liked. Now they're watching "High School Musical 2". Hopefully we'll be sleeping better tonight.

Here at last....

2007-08-17T02:25:00.000-07:00

Well believe it or not, we are finally in Portland after a phenomenally busy and crazy couple of weeks. And naturally I am wide awake at 2.27am on Friday morning, unable to sleep and too keyed up with all the things that have to be done at the house. I'd be lying if I said I was happy at our current situation. Don't get me wrong the hotel we're at is very nice, right on the river, which our room over looks along with the pool. (Kids are very happy about that) and with a nice balcony too. But the house is a whole other question. The yard is a mess. The garage door does not close properly in the back which is a problem. The trees are severely overgrown. I need to get an arborist in immediately and the kids refuse to go into the back yard because there are too many bugs. If I felt overwhelmed at the prospect before we moved I can't even begin to describe how I feel now with this massive undertaking we are starting. Whats more, I'm somewhat concerned that the hugh semi that has all our furniture won't fit on our street when it comes time to unload which could present a big problem come Tuesday. Our neighbors are already pissed off with us because of our tenants and I really don't want to start off on the wrong foot with them when are furniture arrives.

On the plus side, the painters did a great job with the house. It looks really good right now although the magnetic walls are quite as magnatised as I had hoped still they do look good. We don't have any blinds up in the house at the moment, they need to put those back up. Also the floors are in pretty good shape (except for the kitchen which needs to be done after the remodel). I really want to be excited about all of this, I really do, it's just we have our work cut out for us is all. Tomorrow, actuallly today we're going to stop by Home Depot to buy some plants to spruce up the front yard and a rake to rake up all the leaves in the yard. Got to start somewhere I guess. Hopefully it will come together soon, so I can sleep instead of worry. At least Darren will be here on Saturday. Will post some pictures of the moving truck tomorrow/today.

M-DAY minus 23days

2007-07-21T10:13:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday mum/Oma... I guess I should also wish Paul a happy birthday for tomorrow...So I here I sit 23 days away from moving our lives. The time is flying by in a blink of an eye and the kids are l.ounging around this saturday morning, bored because playdates keep getting cancelled and they don't want to play with there mountain of toys. Sometimes I think they have too much and just don't know what to do with it all.

Still they'll survive. I'm sure we were all like that in our youth. Well the packing continues, it's hard to know what is available to pack and what we are still using. I think tomorrow will be a big push to get as much done as possible as we only have 2 more weekends in which to pack as next weekend we're going to the Happiest place on earth for the whole weekend. Kids are very excited about that. It'll be a nice break if not hectic and crowded but I'm sure we'll all have a good time.

This week saw the end of our music lessons until I find a new teacher in Portland. Morgan performed in her play Aesop's Fables yesterday as part of her summer school musical theatre program. It was very cute. She was a tortoise, a mouse, a crow and a toad that blew up. She even had a line. Lots of singing and dancing. She was front row and center. Very cute indeed.

Makes up for the abysmal lack of teaching in knitting and crochetting that after 3 whole weeks I discover Morgan had completely fallen through the cracks and been doing playdoh and drawing for the entire time. I was very unhappy about this as I had paid for this class so I had words with both the principal and the teacher in regard to this. Suddenly she has learnt to finger knit and is loving it. Still I'm not happy that it took her 3 weeks to be noticed enough to be taught.

We have still to get to the beach this year. It's been so hot but so busy that we barely have time to think. The kids have swim lessons through the end of the our time here and they are smack in the middle of the day. So I'm think that I might just move them around a little so that they can some beach time. Our last week here which is also Morgan's birthday week Morgan has gymnastic's camp so Owen and I can organise her birthday party which has to be My little petshop stuff. Another fad... but it's her think. Thank god they are small and won't take up a lot of room.

Painting is almost done of the room. I think Morgan's is the last to be done, but that's because we're waiting on the magnetic paint. It all looks good though. Now we just have to get the floors done and the trees trimmed and we'll be on the right path.

Well more later. Harry Potter has arrived at my doorstep. Got to find out what happened to him.

M-DAY minus 31 days

2007-07-14T08:59:00.000-07:00

Okay so we are now exactly one month away until we start our migration north to Portland... one month.? Eekkkek! I look around the house and it looks so empty on one hand and then I think we have sooo much left to do on the other. The back house is pretty much packed now and we sold the play structure and it was picked up yesterday so now our back yard looks huge... I still need to sell our armoir and extra freezer that's in the basement.. but we are official now as I signed the papers to move with United last friday. Yesterday the upstairs office room was finished with new carpeting, so that's done.

Still now the work needs to be done on the Portland house, which is so overwhelming. After a brief visit last weekend, (hampered by either food poisoning or a nasty bug) I discovered much to my dismay that we have at least 5 huge trees that need to be trimmed way back or removed altogether, an expense I wasn't budgeted for but has to be done pretty soon. It was quite a depressing visit as the house was quite filthy when I arrived to meet with the painters to look at colors. Morgan's room was the most difficult and I hated every color there. All the colors I had picked were way too dark and as it was a beautiful bright sunny day, I knew we were in trouble with the colors, so Brent (my painter) and I decided we need to cut the colors down by at least 1/2 strength if not more.. He's sent me some photos of the progress and the difference is like night and day. Of course, pictures don't really do the house justice but Deb, my realtor, went by and said the colors were great... of course, she could just be saying that. This is a picture of the basement painted.

More later. I hope.

Is it really June 26th? Well no it's now July 3rd.

2007-06-25T17:05:00.000-07:00

Oh my god, has it really been a month since I last blogged... yikes... that does not bode well for the passage of time, especially since we have exactly seven weeks until we move... eek.....

Life just has been so incredibly busy with end of school.. very sad along with the spring dance and the start of summer school... hurrah!

This will be very short as am in the midst of packing hell and dealing with July madness. Will upload more later.

Tata

Memorial Day Weekend... the aftermath.

2007-05-29T12:59:00.000-07:00

From this to................................................ this in just 2 days....
... oh the joys of kids getting sick...I started with Owen on Sunday, who missed out on the pool (see the above picture) altogether, but Morgan still got to go. Then this morning around 2.30am she crawled, as she often does at that time of the night, into our bed and I could tell we were in for the same thing as Owen over the last two days. Fever, headache, sore throat. It occured to me yesterday afternoon after Owen was so much better but still complained of a sore throat, that perhaps he had tonsillitis. Upon reading it up on the internet that it was highly contagious, I wasn't really that surprised when this morning Morgan came down with it. So here I was thinking that the kids would both be back in school today, it's likely one or both will be home all week with me. Which isn't to say nice, but when you have doctor's appointments lined up all week during their school time it's actually somewhat of a pain in the backside.

A visit to the doctor, at least confirmed it WASN'T strep, which was a great concern, but it also isn't a traditional form of tonsillitis either. It turns out they both have a virus and it can and will run it's course but there is nothing you can give for it to speed up the process. Owen will be going back to school tomorrow, and hopefully Morgan by Thursday but more likely Friday, just in time for the Spring Dance, which she is really looking forward to, unfortunately she won't be there to make her costume so I hope the teachers will make one for her or I can do it at home.

Of course, I had to postpone a number of things including a workshop, although my new client will probably be coming over later this afternoon to sort through photos while the kids watch a movie. Owen at least finishedthe drawing part of his art project this morning and hopefully the rest of it tomorrow as I cancelled their piano/music class for tomorrow anyway.

Darren's show aired again last night. It seems they keep changing the format and now it's becoming very American Idolish, which even though the movies are interesting it isn't much of an exciting reality show as you don't actually see the contestants make the projects. I thought that process was much more dynamic, but I guess it depends on what the American Public think of all this. We can only wait and see.

Okay this is it for today... more on the trials and tribulations of my life later.

Approaching Memorial Weekend.

2007-05-25T10:01:00.000-07:00

Well it's hard to believe in little under 3 months we will no longer be in sunny california. That is just plain scary.. no other word for it. The kids have only 3 weeks left of school. Which is really sad for us. We had the most amazing open house the other day at school. Morgan's classroom was like a little farm resplendent with a pasture of cows, pigs, chickens and goats (made from paper, painted by the kids and hanging from monofiliment from the ceiling). Two of the chicks that had been in an incubator actually hatched that morning and by the time Open House started 3 more had hatched much to the delight of the children. The wall s were just covered with Farm related work the children had done, including Morgan the farmer from Oregon who had milking cows. Of course, the one time I should have had my camera with me, I left it at home. I could just kick myself. It was just incredible. Owen's classroom was a little more subdued. They had just finished Star testing. But they had all their artwork displayed all over the classroom, including timelines that the children had created over the past 5 years. Now his class are getting ready to do an end of year play called "Rumpus in the Rainforest" . Every afternoon, Owen comes home and is singing the song and telling me he wants to be the Sloth... okay this really doesn't surprise me too much as sloths tend not to move so much. Still I keep telling him if he wants that part, he needs to tell his teacher. SO we will see in a couple of weeks at the performance, what part he ended up with. School is beginning to wind down. Next week Friday is the Spring dance, were all the kids from all the grades perform a dance for the parents. It's a long process, but the kids have a fantastic time. I will definitely bring my camera that day.

Last weekend Darren did his 200 mile bike ride and as he likes to tell everyone he's bum is pretty sore, and apparently, (though I haven't verified this) looks like a baboons butt. Anyway while he was off injuring himself, I took the kids to their art show where they displayed their work they had been creating over the past few months. Owen with his seal that he created with Oil pastels and Morgan with her Swan, also in Oil Pastels. These were done entirely by them with a little guidance from their teachers. I just hope I will be able to find a program like this up in Portland. Who knew they were capable of this.... I'm quite blown away by these pictures my self.

On a whole other note, Darren's dad has now been released from the hospital after breaking his cheekbone and nose in a freak softball accident. He was in the outfield and misjudged the ball and it hit him square in the face. He will require some reconstructive surgery but it's not as bad as we all first thought. It will be done in an outpatient clinic but not until all the swelling has gone down. The bigger issue was that he won't be able to drive, but his girlfriend Nancy is having Jim stay with her, and then next week a local friend of Darren's and Jim will take care of him starting next Tuesday. Of course we aren't telling Owen how this happened as he is only now finally catching the ball in baseball and we don't want him to once again be afraid of the ball.

Owen is actually turning into quite an exceptional player, considering the first couple of years. He is finally coming into the game. He is quite the slugger when he makes contact with the ball and that is happening more often than not. He made quite a catch the other day too and got one of the opposing team players out as a result. He won't ever be the greatest player but he's not bad that's for sure.

Okay that's it...will get back to writing again soon. Tata.

Sometime in May

2007-05-15T11:41:00.000-07:00

It's been a interesting few days. Life is still moving forward with this move. I'm trying to motivate myself to pack a few more things and follow up on inquires made. Darren is busy working on his show "On the Lot" that premieres next Tuesday. Then I'm sure all hell will break loose and we'll rarely see him. He's also going up to the bay area this weekend to ride in a 200 mile bike race? (not sure if it's a race or a ride) Kids and I are staying home.

Mother's Day was nice. We joined the Dietles for Sunday brunch at the Smoke House, in Burbank. It was a nice fun place for the kids who could pick out what they wanted to eat and it was also an appropriate way to spend our last Mother's Day together as we did our very first. Mum I don't know if you remember but that was when we first met Lisa at my very first Mother's Day. After that Darren took the kids out and left me in peace for a little while, of course I headed to the back house to work there.... after they played mini golf and bought Owen yet another pair of shoes (I swear that boy goes through his clothing and shoes faster than anyone I know) they got back and we headed out to see Spiderman 3. Okay I know that's a strange way to spend mother's day but both kids really wanted to see it. It was okay.. long... good visual fx but the story was just not very interesting. TOO many characters for you to become emotionally involved in the 2 hours and 40 mins they had to tell the story. Still it's breaking all box office records. It will be an interesting summer of movies as they are quite a few I'd like to see. The next one opening is Shrek 3 this weekend...

All in all it was a fun day. More later.

I have no clue what day this is... it's now a weekly blog.

2007-05-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

So here I sit waiting for my friend Lindy to pick me up so we can go get a shipping box for Darren's bike. He's riding in a 200 mile bike ride next weekend up in Oakland and he needs to ship up his bike... We're staying home... It's been a fun week. Darren's birthday was on Tuesday and I actually was able to cook a decent meal for him. Even my cheese sauce didn't go lumpy. Oh this is so uninteresting. My car is once again at the body shop as I discovered that my rear seat wouldn't fold down as the latch was not functioning properly ( I should say - not at all) so while they managed to fix that, one of the technicians then broke the pull that lowers the seat rest, and now it has to be replaced. They are taking care of that today. Hence no car.

I've been trying to figure out paint colors for Portland. The big question is about whether when Morgan gets her chalkboard wall, if we use magnetic paint, the problem is does that effect electronics like computers, because once that goes up on the wall, it will be magnetic forever. Does anyone know the answer to that? I can't seem to find anything out about that.

We're slowly moving into the finish packing stage. It's all been so long and protracted that there are days when I don't know what to do next. I think in truth I am still in denial about this. I know we're moving but I don't REALLY believe it. Even after the photos came down in the house I still can't truly get my head around it. Denial is a great protector!

On a different note, I'm loading this scrapbook layout that I did with Morgan's own photos that she took. To get a better look make sure you click on the photo. It's very funny and Morgan took all the photos herself. Take a look.

Day 32

2007-05-06T16:57:00.000-07:00

Wow... well we have had our garage sale, (did very well thank you - sold a good amount of stuff), my car was egged (horrid people) and I finally broke down and took down all the photos and pictures from the living room, dining room and partly from the bedroom. I couldn't bring myself to take them all down. It's definitely starting to look very empty around here and echoey too.. it's been a strange few days and I know I don't really get on to write that much these days, but time it does slip away.

We had Oona and Eamon over for a while and the kids got into bathing suits to run around in the sprinklers. It made me somewhat sad to know that this will all end soon. The Lee's are going out of town in June and won't be back until September. So we decided to go to the beach with them next Saturday. Of course, it's mother's day here next Sunday, and we're spending it with The Dietles as we do every year. That should be interesting. Our last one. Sniff.

Well I know this wasn't very long. Not much else to say. Had 3 different classes last week. It was quite tiring. Next one is on Friday. After that we'll be winding down at the end of June. Summer is fast approaching. GULP. Busy busy busy.

Day 31

2007-04-25T16:45:00.000-07:00

Phew... finally, finally the cause of our flood is behind us. A broken sump pump was the culprit but the joke is (not a very funny one) that as soon as that was fixed I discovered the tap was dripping from where the water comes into the washing machine. Still it's a reasonably easy fix, all we need is a new washer in the tap.

Anyway that being said, am now knee deep in getting the painters and the flooring people booked to take care of the house up in Portland. It turns out that our tenants either want to move out the end of June or the end of July. So we'll opt for June 30th as we won't have enough time to get the house ready before the move if I can't get in there before Mid July. It's good on one hand because it gives us a little more time but bad on the other because that's two months without rent on the house that we will have to eat. Still we're moving forward. Mum for your info we didn't go with the Painters you liked they were by far the most expensive and they took almost a month to get back to me as far as the estimate was concerned. Didn't bode well in terms of reliability. I went with All Service Painters they were the last people to come by and we went with the first flooring company who gave us an estimate on the spot. Anyway I need to fly up to Portland for the day in July to meet with the painters and I'll probably fly up at the beginning of July to talk with the painters and then again after the job is done so that I can check on their work. It's a bit of a pain but I don't see any way around it.

Well I need to stop as Owen is waiting for me to play soccer with him - (Morgan is at a playdate with Oona, so it's just me and him.)

More later....

Day 30

2007-04-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

I need a week do over... remember that old adage "it never rains but it pours.." well it's flooding here literally. In my basement. Oh and that is only the half of it. At the beginning of the week my neighbor decided in her infinite "Wisdom?" to pull out the hedge that divided our properties. The problem was, it wasn't her hedge to pull out. It was part of what fenced off our front yard and now we have a gaping hole along our yard which is very easy for Milo to escape from. Needless to say I wasn't happy at all... I got quite upset with my neighbor who claimed that the hedge was dying and she didn't realise that it was on our property. I pointed out our fence line and asked how she could possibly think otherwise.. still the long and the short is she has agreed to put up a fence at her expense to remedy the situation. For now we just have to be really careful not to open the front door too wide for the fear that Milo will take off.

Then yesterday morning, my day to start the mass of laundry I have to do, I went downstairs into the basement to put in a second load to find an inch and half to two inches of water all over the floor of the basement. So out came the plumber and after 2 and half hours of investigation found that we had a crack in the sump pump coupling. Or so we thought. He fixed the problem, I finished cleaning up the water damage. I rented a dehumidifier got into the basement. (It's been running ever since.) Finished up the clothing laundry and went about my day. Or so I thought. So this morning when I went to do the sheets (my weekly job) I put in a load of laundry and went to take more sheets down only to see that top lid of the sump pump full of water and then witness a mini "Old Faithful" occur. Okay so I don't have a flood in my basement right now, but it was about to happen. Thank goodness I went downstairs when I did, I hate to think what kind of damage that would've done to the rented dehumidifier. Anyway I now have a call into the plumber to come back out. Only problem is I have to go to the school this morning for the final presentation of the Teacher Appreciation week. I just hope we can get this fixed as Owen had an accident last night and I need to finish washing his bedding.... (I probably shouldn't have written that on the net. Oh well. Therapy here he comes.)

Some sad news too. Hermie is with us no more. The crab passed on sometime yesterday or maybe the day before. So poor Cindy is solo in the crab cage... No we're not getting another crab...it's hard enough to get the kids to look after these crabs... hopefully she'll last a little longer. We'll see.

Okay that's it. No pictures today,...

Day 29

2007-04-17T16:29:00.000-07:00

Okay will life ever get quiet again? Oh yes, I'm sure many of you out there will say it will but I feel like I have been going full speed ahead for the last 2 months. Any time I think I'm getting a break there is a new laundry list of stuff to do.

Today was a mundane day of opening an account with a local plumber, setting up an appointment with a carpet company to give us an estimate on getting the upstairs recarpetted. Calling AT&T to find out how soon we can get a new phone number for up in Portland. Phone round blind for a new gardener in Portland as we think our current gardener just suck! Phoning this one painting company for the 3rd time to give me their estimate on the house in Portland because I really liked them but now am beginning to doubt how reliable they are as after almost 3 weeks I still haven't received their estimate and have called them 3 times. Whoever said 3 was a lucky number? It better be as I'm not calling again! And the hits just keep on coming...

This week is Teacher Appreciation week so each day the kids take in something nice for the teachers to show them how much they (and we) appreciate all they are doing. Owen is actually going out to see a movie with his teacher this friday. (I won the teacher treat at the silent auction for that back in February.)

Still it's an all round fenetic in this household. Poor Owen, his top bunk has now been dismantled along with his shelves and all the stuff that was on his wall around his bed. It sounds so hollow in his room right now... It's a wonder I get a chance to just blog!

Day 28 -Back in play

2007-04-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

I'm baack! Okay I hadn't gone completely dark, just extremely busy... we had a visit from mum which went by much too quickly as I'm sure she'll attest to that. It was a whirlwind visit with 5 days in Oregon, one of those days was spent celebrating Owen's 8th birthday...at LEGO brickfest in Portland. Also we managed to rent our house after interviewing a bunch of prospective tenants we decided on a really lovely family of 3 who will lease our house for a year to start with. I think they're a good fit, but it was tiring showing the house all the time especially trying to get the kids to keep their rooms tidy all the time. But we're done now on that front. I did get a new client out of the process though which is really nice. Classes are going well. We had a terrific easter. On Easter Saturday, there were 22 children here, 20 of which were all hunting easter eggs. Some 250 eggs were hidden for them to find but we had a lovely potluck brunch and it was a lovely day not too hot and not too cold. On Easter Sunday we spent a lovely day with Chrissy family, who had invited us to spend the day with them. Unfortunately for Darren, he had to work the entire weekend. Poor guy went to work on Sunday morning at 5.30am and came home Monday morning in time to say goodbye to the kids as they went to school at 7.45am.

We had a lovely last couple days with mum before she left. But before we knew it she was winging her way back across the ocean to the UK and life just continued to get crazy. On Thursday I accompanied Morgan's Kindergarten class on a field trip by school bus (my very first time on a school bus I might add) to the Underwood farms where we had an amazing day. We got to go on a tractor ride to the strawberry fields where we got pick our own strawberries before seeing a very cute animal show, followed by watching the teachers feed two very young calves. It was a really fantastic educational day for all concerned. Who knew goats had 4 stomachs. That pigs could grow over 500lbs. We also got to buy a ton of fresh veggies at the farm and it was so inexpensive. Unfortunately (or fortunately) by the time we were leaving a huge wind storm kicked up but we got on the bus before it got to be too horrible. Apparently it knocked all kinds of stuff over including our umbrella in our back yard.. it was the death of our umbrella unfortunately.. at least it's now one less thing for us to take with us to Portland. This past weekend we went to Joshua Tree for Mitch & Rena's wedding at the lovely house out in the desert. It was a terrific wedding with the most delicious food all day long.. Morgan must have eaten close to 20 mini beef wellington's or as she calls them "Meat rolls." I felt so stuffed because they served exquisite hors d'eouves all day then after the ceremony there was an open sushi bar, mexican bar and french cusine. All along with an open bar and last but not least a lovely petite fours tray followed by of course the Wedding cake.

All in all it was a really fun wedding, very casual, and very lovely. But now I'm beat and we start a new week tomorrow... starting with Owen's field trip... so I stop now. More later.... I'm Baaack...

Day 27

2007-04-04T20:17:00.000-07:00

Ha made it... even if it did take me a whole week to get back online, to be fair I have been out of town for 5 days and mum has been in town so I have been extremely busy and not always with access to the computer. Well I'm back and just as busy and have managed to completely have a melt down with my kids over their lack of ability to take direction when asked. That's a polite way of saying that they find it impossible to clean up when asked. So now I'm a mean and cruel mom for not letting Owen play with his lego (consequence for not cleaning up his back pack after being asked 4 or 5 times nicely) and Morgan thinks I threw out her teddy bear that she made. (I didn't but threatened to). Man sometimes I find this parenting thing unbelievably hard. I know I shouldn't yell that it doesn't do anything, but it seems to me when I ask nicely nothing, and I do mean nothing, ever gets taken seriously. I'm tired of battling with them and them not listening to me. I thought I was being nice taking them to do fun stuff today but in the end it just back fired.

Oh well, tomorrow is another day. I'll catch up more then.

Day 26

2007-03-27T09:12:00.000-07:00

Am almost there... one more day. Yeah right. That just means I have to keep going with the blog. Anyway here I sit waiting for a prospective tenant to come view the house. Even though we aren't selling we might as well be as we have to tidy up the house every single day in preparation. I'm already fed up with it. The kids are being really helpful though and not creating such a fuss about tidying up. There is definitely an advantage to it I guess. Doubt it will continue after we have a signed contract. Oh well.

Mum is coming in tomorrow. Morgan runs around the house chanting, "2 more days till Oma comes, 1 more day till Oma comes." She is very excited about it. She's now sleeping in Owen's room in preparation for the visit. Like royalty. Ha!

Anyway mum, if you get a chance to read this have a good flight tomorrow. We'll see you at the airport.

Okay gotta run, have a list a mile long of stuff I need to sort out.

Ta

Day 25

2007-03-25T11:14:00.000-07:00

I'm slowing creaking to my 27 day habit.... I finding the momentum of writing everyday slowing but that could very well be due to lack of time with everything that has been going on. What a weekend. We said goodbye to our last sleepover guest at 1000am this morning. The kids had a wild and crazy time, starting the party with playstation while we waited for everyone to arrive and then we progressed to a treasure hunt of stuff Darren had picked up really inexpensively in teaming downtown Los Angeles. Well as teaming as anything would be at 6am on a Saturday morning, he still managed to find some great stuff especially the most coverted Pokemon trading cards that are so ridiculously expensive at Target and so amazingly inexpensive in, yes the teaming, downtown toy district. Maps were courtesy of my friend Lauren who came by to help me design a map of our back yard only to end up doing the whole thing. They are pretty cool We printed them on parchment paper and then singhed the edges of the paper for added effect. I digress. After the kids played, traded and generally horsed around in the back yard, I put in an order for the ever favorite, pizza. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, the pizza joint got our pizza wrong and we ended up with an additional pie.. lots of pizza leftovers. The kids were so stuffed with pizza, they decided they wanted to watch a Star Wars movie. 1/3 of the way through and popcorn devoured, they got bored and presents were opened and to the delight of Owen more Lego.... (I guess at 8 you can never have enough Lego) and pokemon trading cards, the boys spread their wares on the floor to admire just how many Pokemon cards they all had. Then some crazy trading started... although Owen decided he wanted his cards for a few days before he as ready to trade. We tried to do the birthday cake, but they were all too stuffed. (That is except for Morgan, who always has room for cake.)

Around 8.30pm, I managed to get the kids all into pajamas and teeth brushed and beds made (3 mattresses on the floor with sleeping bags sufficed for the 4 boys) and they launched into a raucous, rambunctious all out pillow fight. They had such a good time I didn't have the heart to break it up for a good 30 minutes. (My main concern was that someone would get hurt, but they set their own rules and everything seemed just fine). At 9.10pm it was lights out and I think they were all asleep by the latest 9.45pm.

I was so exhausted I fell asleep around 10pm myself, which is unheard of, but definitely necessary. And of course, they were all up again at 6am this morning trying to keep quiet but busily trading their Pokemon cards.

Darren made them cinnamon rolls with bacon and we then managed to clean the house around them in time for our prospective tenants to come view any minute now. I've got 3 couples due between 1130am and 1pm. After that Darren is going to take the kids to a movie while I have a kids scrapbooking class.

Busy busy busy..... and theres just more of the same next week....phew.! It's a wonder I ever get time to write this blog.

Day 24

2007-03-22T09:28:00.000-07:00

Wow, this week seemed to have disappeared in a flash. Very busy week and having just listed the house for rent on Wednesday my phone has been ringing consisting with enquires. I have already shown it to one couple and have someone coming today at 1030am and someone tomorrow at 9.30am and then on Sunday at 1130am. It hasn't deterred many that we aren't actually renting the house until August. It's been a little upsetting for the kids. Owen got so freaked out yesterday afternoon that he hid under the bed and started to cry. He claims it was because he thought he'd get into trouble for putting Morgan's socks in the freezer. (Which I thought was actually quite funny!) I have know idea why he did that, but he thought better of it and took them out again before I found them in there.

Still it's all part of this long drawn out process of our move. This is like a slow torture, knowing you have to do something you're not really sure you want to do but are going to do anyway and instead of just ripping of the bandaid we're easing into it. I really don't know if this is preferable or not. I think now that we have started showing the house though, the reality is starting to sink in for the kids.

On a whole other note, I finally signed Morgan up for Gymnastics starting April 16th, and she is just thrilled. It's a 10 week session and it will take her through till June. I also got them signed up for Summer enrichment classes through the school.. Morgan will do Musical Theatre (perfect for her) and then a knitting and crochet class and Owen will do a Drawing and painting class, cooking class and Pirateology (sp?) They are very excited about it and I think will have a really good time. I am so relieved because I was panicking about what to do about summer camp and this fall within our budget and keeps them busy every morning for 5 weeks after school is out. I will be able to finish packing and getting ready for the move.

Anyway now I have to go back to the school to take pictures of the 2nd Graders so I'll say hasta la vista. Oh and btb (by the by) I got my check.

Later gater.

Day 23

2007-03-19T22:13:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe it has almost been a week since my last blog... what a week it has been. With the Teacher Appreciation gifts in full swing of creation, I realized that I needed to create something for Owen's teacher too, so I was up until 12.30am last night working on it and then couldn't fall asleep for what seemed like hours; then up again at 7.30am. Had to work in the kindergarten class this morning to finish up the components of the gift. Racing here and there to get supplies for classes this coming week. Plus it's Owen's birthday in less than 10 days and I still haven't got him a birthday present yet.... Need to get on that. Not to mention I still need to write his birthday letter.

This weekend is his birthday sleepover with Jacob Dietle, Jakob Liker and Jeremiah Coffman so that should be fun. Sunday I have a class and on Wednesday, Mum arrives. I'll have one day to actually clean the house before she arrives.

I do have something really sweet to report, last Thursday we went on a nature walk for Morgan's homework and she found a green coin which she swears up and down was Leprecaun gold. Owen got so excited about the prospect of finding his own Leprecaun gold that he and Morgan went home and teamed up to create Leprecaun food so the Leprecaun would leave Owen some gold too. Of course, where on earth was I to find Leprecaun gold at 5.30pm on a Thursday evening. Thank god for arty friends. Lauren totally came through for me and Darren picked up the "money" on his way home. The kids were thrilled the next morning to find the dropped gold....It was the first time in a week that Owen actually was nice to anyone. And he's been pretty nice ever since. Still the week is young...

No pictures for the moment. I don't have time to upload anything for the time being but will get back on that soon.
Hasta.

Day 22

2007-03-14T17:02:00.000-07:00

Today is not a good day... I feel like these 12.30pm pickups are just a bane to my life right now. I don't feel like I'm accomplishing anything in the same window of time I have with the kids in school. To top that off my plate is just too full right now. I guess I'm in my blue phase right now. Not to mention that Owen is being such a pain in my rear right now. I can't wait for his birthday to be over. He is not a very nice person right now and am not too sure how to handle him... He makes it very hard to be responsive to him in a positive way. I just spend my days right now trying to get him to either do his homework, piano or chores in anyway without argument and he's only 7 for goodness sake. Some where along the line I have definitely lost my thread with him.

It's such a drag... well I'm going to stop as this is a very depressing blog today. Look for the next installment to be a bit more positive from my end.

Day 21

2007-03-13T17:18:00.000-07:00

Is it just me, or do you find that the days sometimes just get away from you with having to just run your day to day life? This week in particular feels like it's free spinning out of control at such an alarming rate that I feel I'll be hundred by the end of the week. Okay maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration (Sp!) but still I don't feel like I've got anything done today, between racing to pick up Morgan at 11.35am and then Owen at 12.30 and then going back to the school again at 1.30pm for Parent Teacher conferences for both kids and the kids homework, (that needs to be supervised), piano and singing lessons and now it's already 5.20pm and I have to get dinner started. Where did the day go?????

I have to prep for a class tomorrow, we're supposed to celebrate Ann's birthday tomorrow at sometime, (I still haven't purchased her gift yet), then Winston's coming for dinner tomorrow night and the kids still are out of school at 12.30pm all week!!!! Yikes. I also need to get back to the school to take photos for the teacher appreciation projects potentially for both classes..........

I'm exhausted just thinking about it... I'll be glad when this week is finally done. Not that next week won't be any more crowded with stuff to do.
Well got to dash and finish up the rest of the days. Photos to follow....

Day 20

2007-03-11T19:33:00.000-07:00

Okay is it just me or does anyone else have to suffer their children's birthday blues. I swear this happens every year around the kid's birthdays when they turn into little monsters.... Owen is a horror right now. Argues with you at every turn. Yells at everyone and speaks to them in such a mean tone of voice... and his birthday is still 3 weeks away.

Today was exceptionally warm. Darren took the kids to the park with friends to ride their bikes while I took a trip out to a Scrapbook store with Liz to pick out paper for some teacher appreciation gifts we're making for the Kindergarten teachers. (picture coming) they are very cute, and fun to make.

The Feldmans came over for dinner this evening and Darren made steak and risotto for dinner, very yummy, of course I didn't really eat that much because I got to hold baby Sophia during dinner so that Brad & Chrissy could eat in peace. Sophia didn't really want to sit down on her own or with me, she liked it better when I was standing and rocking her back and forth as the evening breeze (what little there was of it) wafted over her little bald head. She quite the talker too.. gurgling and commenting in her baby way, meanwhile miss Ava is quite the spitfire and gets somewhat mad when she doesn't get things her way. Her speech is improving but still a little hard to understand but boy she certainly can let her feelings be known. Olivia is just Olivia doing her own thing, playing with Morgan & Owen. We did get a surprise visitor in the form of Ann, who is home from college on Spring Break. Morgan just wouldn't leave her own, declaring to all around that this was "My Ann" and not letting go of her the whole time she was here which was close to 2 hours. Of course, Morgan had to compete with Olivia, Owen and Ava for Ann's attention, but they were so pleased as punch that she dropped by. If you can believe it Ann is now 21 years old. I remember her as a shy 15 year old helping me out with Owen when I was pregnant with Morgan. It's incredible how quickly that time seems to have evaporated, like the grains of sand slipping through your fingers. A blink in time if you will..Ahh enough of me being poetic... later.

Day 19

2007-03-10T12:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday seems like a blur right now. Owen's dinner date with Winston was cancelled and rescheduled but now I remember what happened. It was the first day of Mad Science enrichment class for Owen after school and he (I think misunderstood me or just didn't listen - I know which one I think it is) and got very upset when I didn't show up to sign him in, thinking I'd forgotten him. So when I picked him up after class he informed me that he hated me and wished I were dead. Not exactly something I was very happy to hear. ... I know these words were the direct result of one of his friends from school encouraging thoughts like that. He was acting with bravado when he annouced this in front of all his friends. The trouble was that after I had worked in his class, he went to lunch and I told him that I would be back AFTER Mad Science to pick him up and I'm pretty sure he heard what he wanted to hear....

I had gone for lunch with Chrissy and Sophia who were unable to go home because their house was being sand blasted getting ready for painting. They also came back and hung out with us with Olivia for the rest of the afternoon. Then in the evening I took the kids to see "Father's Follies" at the middle school which was actually pretty good. I guess the dads from the middle school put on a performance type talent show of their own every year. But some of the acts were really very good and quite funny. My personal favorite was of the two singing dads pretending to be from "Fiddler on the Roof" singing a rendition of "My teenage children" ending each verse with "Oiy Vey" It was very appropo and funny and something I'm sure I have to look forward to when M & O become teenagers.

Today was opening day for baseball and Owen also had picture day and had to be at the field at 7.40am to meet his team. Then Opening Ceremonies at 8.30am followed by a 10am game. His team rocked. We have some serious hitters on the team, including Owen. Their fielding wasn't bad either. It started off quite chilly this morning and soon turned into a blazing hot day as the sun beat down on these black clad 8 year olds. Still they played extraordinarily well and seem to coordinate pretty well on the field as well.

Owen and Jacob decided they needed a playdate and Darren headed to McDonalds to get them lunch. I can't eat that stuff so I stopped by the store to pick up a couple rolls for lunch.

Right now the boys are playing lego star wars and having trouble killing their bad guys.... I don't have a clue how you play that game, all you hear are shooting and groaning noises coming from the TV and a running commentary from the boys as to how or what to shoot. Did we sound like that as kids...? probably!

Well that's it..more later

Day 18

2007-03-08T13:13:00.000-08:00

Well the last 24 hours have indeed been incredibly interesting and exciting. Some of you already know about my little surprise yesterday morning, but without going into too much detail I ended up, unbeknownst to me, a little better off than I did when I got up that morning. Not something I feel like I should share on the blog just yet. Huh... I've whet your appetite, all you non-informed. Speak to Pap or Mum. They will fill you in. All I can say is it couldn't have come at a better time.

Going back to Tuesday however, not such a fantastic day, somewhat mundane. The Moving guy came and did a walk through the house and after an hour or so of writing down every box and every piece of furniture and equipment he estimated we had over 18,000 lbs of stuff. EIGHTEEN THOUSAND POUNDS!!!! Well you can imagine my horror when we sat down and went through the numbers. I thought I'd been generous in gestimating 15,000 lbs. So needless to say a lot of stuff that was in the "think we might one day need" pile will not be coming with us. I'd like to think we can reduce our weight by 3000lbs at least.

Afternoon was filled with piano/singing lessons and homework. Darren got home late so it was a okay sort of day.

Yesterday now that's a whole other story. To start off, my wedding ring was stuck on my right hand (I'd moved it after the accident) and it was starting to make my finger swell up and become painful. So after soaking the finger in ice water and try to lubricate the ring, nothing working I decided to go online and see if there was a magic trick to removing a stuck ring. Let me tell you there is.. and it works!! Really well! So the trick is that you slide a piece of string/ dental floss/ yarn under the ring and then wind the remaining string/dental floss / yarn around your finger and over the knuckle, binding the finger and squishing down the puffiness. You then start to unravel the string from the opposite side of the ring and that pushes the ring up and over the knuckle and hey presto! the ring comes off. I was so thrilled because I thought I was going to have to have the ring cut off. And the best part, it doesn't hurt.

Yesterday afternoon, Owen had his friend Chase come over for a playdate and Morgan went to the park with Gracie. In the evening Lisa and Jim had invited us to go to the Pac-10 tournament (College Basketball for you uninformed) In all honesty as much fun as it was, you have to pay attention all the time and can't relax and talk or you miss everything. As a result, Lisa, her friend Connie and I ended up eating, talking and drinking most of the time and didn't really see that much of the game. Oregon State was slaughtered by Cal State and as I thought it appropriate to root for Oregon State, was somewhat disappointed by the defeat. We left 30 mins into the second game between Washington & Arizona State.

Today, Morgan got to go on a field trip to In-and-Out Burger, which was a lot of fun for them and they got to eat free food and drink all the different sodas and milkshakes. She also has two friends over as a playdate. It's not as easy as one on one because there is always someone who can't agree and I've had to monitor them a little closer than I would usually. Right now they are out on the deck eating apple sauce as a snack and they are singing to each other. Very sweet.

This afternoon, Morgan has her art class and hopefully we will actually get this week...

More on this later.

Day 17

2007-03-06T08:44:00.000-08:00

Well yesterday was actually a really nice day. I got my car into the shop. The other driver's insurance have admitted total liability and are taking care of getting my car fixed. I got a great sedan car - Hyundai Sonata which is a sweet ride complete with XM radio, thank you very much, in a pretty metallic silver blue and to top it off the police department now are computerized and have given me a parking permit (temporary) to cover the car based on the fact that my car is in the shop so I didn't have to pay for one.

It was a beautiful day yesterday and after we got all this sorted out I took the kids to the Souplantation for lunch. They love going there and it's reasonably good food. A chain that is an all you can eat buffet type place which sells soups (duH!) and salads plus pasta and a bakery bar and it's quick and easy. After a quick stop at Target for Jacob's birthday present we head home to drop off the car and then off to the park. That's what the kids chose to do. We took a frisbee, and my camera and off we went. The kids are actually pretty good with the frisbee and before long the camera and shoes were on the ground and we all joined in a three way frisbee game. Morgan has a really odd way of throwing the frisbee but she always throws it straight and Owen is getting pretty accurate too. Not so much me, although I did manage to catch a few of the ones the kids sent flying my way much to my surprise.

After a quick water break where we ended up having a bit of a water fight, Owen squirted me and I spat water at him and we all had a really good laugh, we walked over to the playground and the kids climbed the tree in the middle. Owen got up on his own, Morgan needed a little bit of a lift. They decided they really wanted more water play so we headed home and they got into their bathing suits and proceeded to use the hoses to spray each other. It was very

funny to watch. (See photos)

After an early supper it was off to baseball practice and the coach told Lisa to just have Jacob play on the team and so we now officially have him on the team... Darren even made it to practice. Which really made Owen very happy.
So a good day all in all.

Well got to get in the shower before the guy from United Moving co. turns up to give us an estimate. Busy day today.

Day 16

2007-03-04T17:10:00.000-08:00

Okay did anyone else notice this that next weekend the clocks will be going back one hour in the US. When did this happen. I must have been asleep... because I could've sworn it was always later.. anyway you Euros when you call remember until the last week of March we will be 9 hours ahead of you.

Anyway, aside from all that the moon party was really fun for the kids, but I wasn't in the greatest of moods, I got over it after I ate dinner though. It looked to me as if the whole of kindergarten and their families showed up. Lots of telescopes. The highlight of the evening for me was getting to see Jupiter through one of the telescopes. Although I have to say it did look like someone had stuck a tiny picture of Jupiter to the end of the lens. Didn't look real at all. The moon, however was spectacular.

Food would've been good if it hadn't been cold by the time we got to eat it. Kids particularly enjoyed the moon pies... I think Morgan enjoyed the band that played all manner of moon songs including Blue Moon Rising and other oldies relating to the moon.

Owen disappeared onto the play structure for most of the evening so we didn't see much of him.

Yesterday I managed to go out for a little while with Morgan to get supplies for a page layout I'm prepping for a class. The page turned out great but the expedition was somewhat disappointing in as far as the choice of paper wasn't there... but I managed to make do. It turns out I won't be giving a class this Wednesday as my regular client is double booked and I didn't think I'd get my stuff sorted in time. In the afternoon the kids practiced baseball with Darren. It was fun to watch through the camera lens but everytime Owen or Morgan hit the ball I thought it was coming right at me as everything appeared a lot closer looking through the lens, as anyone with a camera would tell you.

It's a shame Morgan didn't want to play this year, because she's actually very good, but it's too late now as we withdrew her name. Oh well...

Today while Darren took them to Chuck E Cheese.. my absolute least favorite place in the whole world, I gave a class to some kids. They got to create a "Things I Love" page. Both turned out really well. Chrissy hung around with Olivia and Madeline hung out on her own. It was a reasonably simple page to do but came out great. Lots of color. It was a page I did for both kids last year, and you can do it every year with the kids because the things they love changes almost daily.

Anyway I'm going to end now. The kids are off school AGAIN tomorrow for the teachers In Service day. I have to deal with getting my car into the shop to be repaired and getting a rental. I still haven't heard from the claims adjuster hopefully it will be earlier rather than later. Then I think I might take the kids to the movies or something. We'll see.

Okay that's it for today. Eleven days left for my habit to have been created.

Day 15

2007-03-02T14:26:00.000-08:00

What a day yesterday turned out to be... on the way to taking Morgan to her art class I got broadsided by a GMC Sahari Van, which totally destroyed the drivers side door. It was quite traumatic, but thank god Morgan wasn't hurt and my knee is a little dinged up and achy. I think it just aggravated an old injury but we'll see within the next couple days if it gets any worse. So I spent the whole day on the phone with insurance guys. And get this the woman in the van who broadsided me claims she was stopped. Honestly how does she account for the damage to my car?... was my car driving sideways?... I was in an alley driving west and she came out of the parking lot and drove straight into me... This is precisely the reason I called the police out to take an accident report. Darren also came out to make sure we were okay. Of course now I don't have a car that I can drive until the adjustor comes out and we can take the car to the shop, then at least I'll have a rental car for the duration of the repairs. The State Farm Insurance guy was really nice though even though he was the other parties insurance guy, but he called me to ask me what happened.

Anyway we'll see how all this plays out in the next week or so. It's just a real drag especially as my knee really aches. My wrist stopped hurting now but I switched my watch, bracelet and wedding band to my right hand just in case.

Needless to say Morgan never made it to her art class this week. The bummer of that was that we were literally within walking distance when the accident happened. But they were kind enough to give her a credit for next week instead.

I must admit I was so tired after all the emotions that played out I feel asleep on the couch with the kids. I've felt tired all day today too... must be the stress.

Well aside from that tonight is Morgan's kindergarten class' Chinese Moon Party at the school, where they get to look at the moon through telescopes and have chinese food, and I guess all round fun. Should be interesting... it starts at 6pm and goes til 8pm. Late night again for the kids thank goodness no baseball tonight.

Day 14

2007-03-01T09:25:00.000-08:00

Not a lot to report today, had a very successful class last night and will be doing a remembrance page next week. Am having coffee with my friend Lindy in about 15 mins so I'll make this very short and sweet. Well short anyway. And if you're wondering about the picture... well I just thought it's funny.!!!

Yesterday we visited our tax guy and I left feeling quite depressed by the whole thing. Darren is convinced we'll be getting a nice check back but I'm always such a skeptic (is that how you spell that word?) about these things. Even our accountant wasn't really happy about things seeing as how complicated everything was going to be.

We went out for dinner after that to Bob's Big Boy. What a big waste of time and money that was. Don't need to eat there again.. See Pap only talking about food a little this time. All that needs to be said is that the kids were fussy and the food was BAD! Not wasting anymore time on that.

Lisa came over earlier to work in the workshop and as she was leaving she told me how much she was going to miss me and a whole set of emotions just erupted in me. I can't think about this now without getting teary eyed over the whole thing. I think the catalyst for me was when I had to hand in the papers for school stating we were moving out of state for next years enrollment. It just made me cry. So we're not talking about this or I shall boo hoo from now until August.

Okay, need to go to get to the bank before I meet Lindy. More later, probably tomorrow.

Day 13

2007-02-27T16:08:00.000-08:00

So here I sit watching Owen getting into trouble with his piano teacher for not reading the notes as I have been asking him to do. I've had to back off with his practicing because we get into such fights. Does this sound familiar Mum?????! Hopefully she'll get him fired up to actually practice properly. He resists me every step of the way. And it looks like she might have done it.

Morgan is waiting for her singing lesson which will commence after this lesson.

I spent this morning getting my accounts in order for Stop N Crop. I closed down my personal savings account and transferred the balance (what was in there) into my business account. I was inspired to do this after setting up my online banking for our personal accounts yesterday.

Had a client come by again today and she paid up for all the days she's been coming and I think she may not be back for a while as it all added up to what seemed like a lot by the time she was done. Hope not though as it was nice to have someone use the workshop and not have to teach.

Tomorrow Lisa is coming to use the workshop for a little while. I'll be doing my "Once Upon A Time" Page class tomorrow night and then on Sunday I'm holding my next kids class at 1pm Sunday. So it will have been a not bad month for me, considering how little people have been coming in the past. Fingers crossed things are looking up.

Anyway... that's it for now... more later.

Day 12

2007-02-26T11:37:00.000-08:00

I'm exhausted, just reading everything we did in the last couple days. And the hits just keep on coming..... I've spent this morning converting all our bills to an online bill paying account, and no I'm not that silly to give out the details online, just to say hopefully this will save a lot of time in the future, but suffice it to say, I still have to transfer our money from our old account to the new one before I'll be able to do any online paying. All very confusing and a little time consuming in the beginning.

I was asked today to help chair the raffle at the annual funfair for the school, but I had to turn them down, as I'm so swamped getting everything sorted with this move and all. Aside from the packing there are so many little details that I'm afraid are going to fall through the cracks if I don't keep on top of it all, you know minor stuff like setting up a phone line, and cable or satellite, finding dentists and getting doctor records transfered to Portland. Not to mention just the everyday running of this house. Owen starts baseball practice tonight at 6pm. UGH with a capital UGH!.. The time is terrible as dinner is usually at 6pm and bed at 7.30pm. I'm hoping to get Maxi to come sit for Morgan on Monday nights just so I don't have to drag her out to practice. She hates to go! Still waiting to see if they managed to switch Jacob to Owen's team as I had a long conversation with the wife of O's coach and she said she'd try to get that sorted out for us. Will find out tonight I guess.

Day 11

2007-02-25T11:04:00.000-08:00

Just a very quick note as I have to, and I say that with a big HAVE TO, do my taxes today as we have an appointment with our accountant on Wednesday. So as it's Oscar day and a party for the kids, it will be yet another full day. Okay that's it, short but sweet. No photos today either. Will write more later.

Day 10

2007-02-24T12:12:00.000-08:00

Here I am again... ten days into my 27. What you may ask is that all about, well somewhere I read that it takes 27 days to form a habit, and as I'd like to keep this up as a habit, I want to get to my 27 days. Sounds like I'm in a reverse sort of rehab!

Last night was long. Morgan's talent show was a lot of fun and we couldn't have been more proud of her, but man it seemed to be a long drawn out affair. Did our parents really do this for us???? We got there around 6.15pm and left at around 9.30pm... I think there were over 90 acts ranging in approximately 1 minute in time. Some of the acts were pretty good, the Hula girls and Jazz, solo dancing had all the kids rocking in their seats. We definitely had some good voices and some not so good. I doubt "American Idol" would come knocking at this stage. But Kudos to everyone of those kids who got up and performed, it can't be easy to get up in front of strangers and perform an act. One classic moment, when a kindergartener forgot her words, she turned to her mom who was in the wings and said "Mom did I mess that up?" For my part not at all, that girl can sing, and I can't imagine how tired all these kids were at that time of night to be performing for the second time that day. Will try and figure a way to upload the Morgan's performance at a later date.

This morning we were off to a slow start, having got up late, only to have found out that Owen & Jacob did not make the same baseball team. Now we're trying to do some damage control, because Owen and Jacob don't want to play at all unless they're on the same team together, I'd already withdrew Morgan from baseball when her friend Oona dropped out, so now I'm hoping the powers that be at the South Pas Little League will compassionate enough to switch the teams up so they can be on the same team together. Especially as these two hardly ever see each other and being best friends, and us moving and the like we were hoping this would give them one last hurrah together. Fingers crossed!!

Well that's it for today. Later one and all!

Day 9 ish

2007-02-23T15:27:00.000-08:00

Yeah I know I haven't been on for a while but it's been a really busy week especially as the kids had yet another day off on Monday and it kind of threw my whole week off. I feel like I've been playing catch up ever since. Plus piano/singing lessons resumed on Tuesday after a 2 month hiatus which actually was pretty good. Miss Ki is very nice, but somewhat pricey and if it wasn't for the move we'd probably have found a new music teacher that's a little less expensive. Still she was kind enough to work with Morgan a lot this week as she has her talent show, which is actually tonight, where she will be singing for the 3rd and final time "Reflection" from Mulan.

I also finally have a new client for Stop 'N Crop and she came by on Tuesday for a few hours in the afternoon. I'm not usually open on a Tuesday but as she was a new client I made an exception. But it was a bit of a mad rush to get the kids after school while she was working in there.

Wednesday I went downtown with my friend Lauren to the fabric district and then my client came back again on Wednesday afternoon to work again in the workshop. Plus Morgan also had art class that day swapped from Thursday because of talent show rehearsals. And then on top of that I had an evening class with my regular client Jennifer where we made this great rain page using this new product I have called crystal effects I think. Basically it's a type of adhesive that when it dries it dries wet . My biggest problem was that with this computer out of action (I didn't get it back until Tuesday) I didn't have access to my rain photos and didn't really have many until I remember late on Wednesday afternoon, while Morgan was at her drawing class and Owen and I had decided to go out for tea, that I had the photos from Washington D.C. when the kids and Darren came out to visit for the weekend and it rained. SO I finally finished the 2 page layout at 7pm that evening about an hour before Jennifer arrived. She did a terrific page based on my layout of her kids playing at the Hungtington garden's water area. We even broke out the sewing machine to use that technique for the pages.

I should add that while I was doing all this I was also running around doing the usual family stuff like grocery shopping, laundry, helping the kids with their homework, making lunches for them, getting Owen to practice the piano and the like.

Yesterday being Thursday I picked Morgan up from school at 1135am and took her to get her bangs trimmed, then we practiced her song a few times and then after I picked up Owen from school got Morgan ready for her dress rehearsal. She looked so cute in her lavendar chinese dress with her black ballet slippers, (a sudden brain wave I had while trying to figure out what she could wear with tights as it was way to cold to wear flip flops at the moment) We also put her hair up with 2 chopstix and off we went to rehearsal. Of course right as we got there it started to rain and then some. That's a whole other story , leak in my car finally discovering the source and fixing it with Darren's help. Therefore, avoiding a costly visit ($115) to the dealership just to look at the car and not necessarily finding the problem. Anyway back to the rehearsal. Well let's just say that the first half (the only half I witnessed) was extremely long and painful. Bless these little souls hearts. Even Morgan, who isn't half bad started off in a key way, way too high for her. So we then spent the rest of the evening practicing the song. I even downloaded the song for her to listen to. Thank god one of her friend's mom, who is a musician, was setting the microphone on stage and gave her the correct key to sing in this morning when they did the performance for the school this morning. I wasn't there but a lot of the mom's came up to me after school and told me she was much better today and soooo very cute in her outfit. The whole talent show was based on a pirate theme and when I dared to suggest she wear a pirate costume, Morgan bluntly informed me that Mulan wasn't a pirate and she wanted to dress as Mulan. I pointed out that the song would work for a pirate wench but she wasn't having any of it. "Mom!! Mulan isn't a pirate. I'm wearing a dress!" And that pretty much was the end of that. Still the costumes everyone wore to school were fantastic, all these pirates. It was pretty cool.

Anyway tonight Miss Morgan will perform once again for the friends of families of the performers, so we will go out for Chinese... see a theme here... and then go to watch the performance. Apparently the 5th graders are selling cookies, cake and flowers for the performers so we thought we might buy some for Morgan. I think she'll get a kick out it. Will give you the low down on the performance tomorrow.

Got to go and do sheets now. Oh the life of a hapless housewife.

Day ???? I think 8

2007-02-20T18:36:00.000-08:00

Okay this is a really quick blog. I am in computer hell having just received my old computer back I am currently having to reload every program I had on here before I can get this piece of **&%@#*$) up and running again. SO I will get with it again tomorrow. Tata.

Day 7

2007-02-18T14:30:00.000-08:00

Wow I just realized it's been over a week since I started this monologue.. I'm sure there will be days when I will have absolutely nothing to say, but today isn't one of those days....

Darren & I started the day off taking the books off the shelves and deciding which books to keep and pack and which to give a way or rather sell at the Estate sale we'll be having in May... Then down came the shelves, the top ones haven't seen a dust cloth in 7 years!! UGH! and sneeze. Owen was once again in trouble this morning for being rude and sulky.. That boy seems to be having a very very slow learning curve at the moment. So he missed out on going to the movies with Darren & Morgan. The two of us stayed home instead and finished packing the boxes of shelves and I have to say it was very nice to have some alone time with him. He cleaned off his book shelf too. It was kind of cool because we found some old photo albums and had a good look through. Really were we ever that young and good looking???? And THIN! Owen said he didn't recognize, I didn't recognize me! AND Darren had hair, black hair! Anyway the boxes seem to be taking over the house and we aren't moving for 6 months. Still it's a process and by doing it slowly and in stages I'm hoping it won't freak me out too much. Yeah right!

By the time the other two got home, Owen and I had had lunch out on the deck on our comfy patio furniture and all was right with the world again. And it is warm.. I think it's been in the 90's the last couple days. Who would've have thought it's February. Global warming at it's ... what? Best! Worst? Weird! And that's all I have to say about that.

Last night was fun, we went out for a really nice Mexican meal with our friends the Chavez's, and as the weather was so nice, Darren broke out the Camaro and we drove to the restaurant with the top down. I call that car the beast, it certainly roars like one. The kids love it though especially when Darren revves up the engine and races up the streets. The wind plays havoc with us long haired gals so we both wore head scarves. Owen, however, had us beat in a particularly funny but ultra cool pair of goggles which are two sizes too big for his head.

George was thrilled because he finally had a chance to take a ride in the beast as he's been coveting the car for 2 years now and this is the first time he's gotten to ride in it. Timing was never in our or his favor. Darren took the boys home in the beast and I got to ride with the girls in Lynne's more hair friendly mini-van. It turned into quite a late night as the kids played video games in the house and we grown-ups hung outside drinking margaritas & beer while the guys smoked cigars... very civilized. Sort of. Around 10pm we staggered home as Darren or rather George had driven the car home earlier. Needless to say the kids moods today have had a direct corrolation to their late night last night. Just as well tomorrow is a holiday.

Day 6

2007-02-17T12:25:00.000-08:00

So no-one got sick from me as far as I can tell. The playdate went off without a hitch, save for a few scrapes and bumps... Owen had to go to the doctor's office this morning, he'd developed this rash that had spread and when I called to ask what they thought I should do, ( I told them the rash looked like this rash I'd had as a young teenager/adult) they instantly thought he might have scarlett fever.. which is highly contangious. SO you can imagine my alarm at the thought that we'd infected all these people. Need not have panicked though, it's exactly what I thought it was and there is no contagion and it will clear up on it's own in a week to a month.

This evening we're supposed to be going out for Mexican food with our friends, the Chavez's so am glad Owen is not typhoid Mary.

It's a beautiful but hot day out today and the kids are outside eating lunch, who would've thought it was the middle of February it feels as though you could fry and egg on the sidewalk.

Owen is also mad at me right now as I told him he had to go practise the piano and of course he'd rather be playing with his Lego. The trials and tribulations of a seven year old. I'm getting a lot of "Fine" along with the stamping of the feet and "Don't talk to me" and the proverbial tongue poked out at me in his effort to be rebellious. Can't wait for the teenage years... the joy of it!!!

Nothing else to report so enjoy the weekend..

Day 5

2007-02-16T10:49:00.000-08:00

Update on the computer... what a scam. So I took the computer to a different I.T. place and it turns out I DON'T have to change the hard drive, just reformat the old one and reload all my programs. Hopefully this will do the trick. Still it's going to cost a couple hundred $'s to do. Of course I am terrified that I will lose all my ITunes, so they are going to back that up for me and reload it all onto my computer. Fingers crossed.

Spent the morning working with Lauren a some bubble invitations for a client. They are seriously cute. See photo attached.

This afternoon both kids have playdates with friends at our house and I'm cooking dinner for one of the families. Really all I talk about is food?... I guess I do, but then again, I'm practising being descriptive. To top it off, I'm starting a cold. Had a scratching painful sore throat for the past couple days and my nose is starting to run.. eeww! Thank god bacteria is killed due to high cooking temperature. Hope that doesn't put anyone off!!

Post Script

2007-02-15T14:17:00.000-08:00

Okay this truly sucks!!!! I just popped in to check on my notebook computer only to find out that my hard drive is failing and the I.T. guys tell me that is very common in computers these days that they are only designed to last upto 3 years... how crappy is that!? Anyway am not ready to buy a brand spanking new computer so I'm just going to get the hard drive replaced. It's still going to be cheaper than buying a new computer and that way I can make it last at least a little while longer....

Day 4 - yeah I know I skipped a couple days

2007-02-15T09:40:00.000-08:00

So I skipped a couple days, but with good reason, my notebook is still in the shop and yesterday was after all Valentine's Day (hence the red color for my blog today.) Scrapbooking Fun Class went very well Tuesday night (Changed the date because Wednesday was.... yes Valentine's day) considering I wasn't at all prepared but Jennifer was very happy with her page as was I. And I even managed to come up with a very cool page for Morgan. I'd captured a particular great photo of her at the park with Grandpa Jim the other day and changed it to black and white and then played with the photo. Of course, the next project has to be with Owen...

Yesterday was a fantastic day... Darren pretty much spoiled me rotten, NOT going into details except that he took me to this GREAT Sushi place in Studio City. OH MY GOD - absolutely the best sushi I have ever eaten. We sat at the bar and the chef prepared food for us suggesting what he thought would be a good menu. I should've listened because he had choosen really well for us, from albacore sashimi (my favorite) to blue crab handrolls, and yellowtail sushi (the yellow tail coming from Japan that day - it was delicious) but I had to have this one Crunchy roll which had shrimp and tempura topping, the chef looked at me and said he thought it might be too heavy and he was right. Next time (and there will be a next time) I will listen to him.

The rest of the day was just as great, I got to take a nap (me take a nap and I was out cold for 2 hours) and he picked up the kids and made a fantastic dinner. The kids were on a sugar high from school and Morgan crashed around 4.30pm and took a nap on me. I was worried she was sick because she NEVER takes naps - but she was fine after we sat down for a scrumptious Beef Wellington dinner with red wine risotto and baby carrots. If it sounds mouth watering that's because it was. Darren is the BEST cook. We ended our meal with some very yummy cupcakes from a new cupcake store - DOTS CUPCAKES, on the Arroyo. I'm not big on icing but the chocolate chocolate cupcake was to die for.. strawberry one was a little too sweet for me... but still scrumptious.

Well enough about food.. Finally after dinner we exchanged Valentine's gifts , the kids, bless their hearts bought me a talking rose, you know you get to record your voice and then play it back. It's very tacky but I just LOVE IT! All in all it was the best Valentine's ever. So how was yours????

Day 3

2007-02-12T21:37:00.000-08:00

So here I sit after an intense day for me of trying to sort out my wayward computer.. it's driving me nuts and as I am not an I.T. person, I'm having a lot of trouble trying to get anything technical to work.. still finally managed to back up my photos on both computers and this notebook will be heading into an I.T. store tomorrow for a tune up.

Spent the day with the kids, Darren and Grandpa Jim. Kids were off school today for Lincoln's Birthday. I swear these kids have way more time off from school than I ever did... when do they ever get to learn!! I had a ton of phone calls to take care of this morning to arrange for flooring & painting companies to meet us at the new Portland house in March so they can give us estimates on the work that needs to be done. Once that was taken care of and after a trip to Best Buy for my new hard drive, we headed downtown to the restaurant Philippe's, best french dips in town, really good too... although Morgan wasn't so impressed. It's one of those old restaurants that have been around for 99 years and has sawdust on the floor, quick turnover in clients and people lining up in droves. The benches were communual unless you were lucky enough to grab the little "Booths" (they are really four person tables along the side of a wall as far as I could see). Still it reminded me more of a throw back to the 50's with the ladies scooping up ice cream shaped coleslaw and noodle salad on paper plates with huge slabs of meat on french dip buns. The menus hang on the walls stating quite matter of factly that you can have beef, pork, lamb or turkey dipped sandwiches and breakfast up until 1030am only. Not much room of error there. You can also get a bunch of sides but to be honest if you are going for a french dip what else do you really want but beef on a french roll. It was delicious, the meat tender and melted in your mouth... I pretty much inhaled mine, but no where near as fast as Darren and Jim who polished off their lamb sandwiches in a blink of an eye. And lets not forget the spicy mustard.. wow!! Let's put it this way my sinus's had been bothering me for days and after the mustard I didn't feel the need to purchase the sudafed I was planning on buying.

After our little 'light' lunch we headed into chinatown so Morgan could get a new Chinese dress for her upcoming performance at her school's talent show. She's singing "Reflections" from "Mulan" and informed me she just had to have a purple chinese dress, seeing as her red chinese dress was a might too small for her. I must say it is really pretty. That girl really does have good taste for a 5 year old. We wandered to the bakery to get her some chou su bao, (okay I spelled that phonetically as I have no idea at all how it's spelt but the long and the short is we picked up some pork buns for her as she didn't eat any lunch.)

When we got back to Pasadena we headed to the park with a very excited Milo and a very reluctant Owen who really was in a funk as we never made it to Kidspace (the kids were fighting earlier in the day so they lost that privilege) but after being told if he didn't go to the park he'd have to stay home with me and help with the chores which included laundry and picking up the dog poop... amazing how that seems to be the great motivator for going to the park.. no sooner had I mentioned that and we were all going, them on their razors and me loaded with my camera. And incidentally they had so much fun there (especially after meeting up with Alyssa & Nicolas) that neither one wanted to leave when it was time to head home. Iposted the picture I took of them up the tree... couple of monkeys.

Tomorrow it's back to school for them and me, well I've got to prep a scrapbook class for tomorrow night, usually it would be on Wednesday but as it's Valentines Day Wednesday, I decided to hold the class a day early. We're doing a layout for a relative, not sure yet who I will pick.... I'll have to sleep on that one. I could write more but I need my beauty sleep hahaha...

Will write again sometime soon.

Day 2

2007-02-11T12:07:00.000-08:00

Well our day started with rain, if you can believe it. The weathermen have been predicting rain for months now and never delivered and finally it came in a heavy downpour and lasted no time at all, a few hours in the night. Still in southern california a few hours is a lot.

Kids have been sharing a room. Morgan on the top bunk and Owen on the bottom bunk. Yeah she actually slept through the night in her own (well Owen's top bunk) bed. Yipee a full night sleep without a little warm body pushing me out the bed.... Reason for this. Grandpa Jim arrived for a couple day stay and he's going to be staying in her bedroom.

Last night was nice, Darren and I had a date night and instead of going to the movies (there's not a lot of appealing stuff out to see right now) we went out for dinner at a local restaurant Briganti's in South Pasadena. Food was decent nothing that blew me away but I'd eat there again. Wine was very nice but made me sleepy. But best of all we talked, not argued. We discussed the move to Portland this year and what we were hoping to accomplish but also we discussed how we talk to each other and how we can improve on that. I need to take things less personally and he needs to temper how he responds to me. Should be interesting to see how that works out.

Jim arrived and immediately Darren waylaid him into drawing plans for our new kitchen for the Portland house. He being an architect is very useful and he's already come up with some great ideas with variables now all will depend on getting accurate measurements when we visit the house in March. This has been the hard part that this move has taken so long.... I feel like we keep bunny hopping along getting all invested in the move and then realising it's 5 months away. Still it will get here sooner than any of us will be ready for. I'm just trying to keep positive about the move so that it won't freak me out so much when we finally go. I even scrapbooked (Did you really think I wouldn't bring in around to scrapbooking - look at the title of the blog!!!) a double layout to honor our current home and the new house... can't finish that page until after we visit in the Spring though. I really like the layout though. Wish I had the original idea but I saw a similar layout in one of my magazines and had to just "scraplift" the idea. It was very therapeutic and it made me really think about the good times we've had in the Milan house....

Well that's it for today... I'm going to get the kids some lunch, get them to stop watching TV, yes I know it's Sunday but really we need to do something other than TV. Hopefully stop by to see some friends locally.

Day 1

2007-02-10T11:22:00.000-08:00

Alright, I admit I am inspired to start this blog, for no other reason than Mike & Rita did. Now they may have a fancy vacation to write about but, me I have my life, which is anything but ordinary. With two young growing children to occupy my life and if that wasn't enough a husband in the entertainment industry. And me, I have my passion, Scrapbooking. Now that may not sound particularly glamourous to some people, but to those who have also caught the bug, they can tell you that it is an amazingly relaxing and creative outlet that can occupy hours upon hours of our time.... not always in favor of the family. Well enough of that... I will post more later.