Life as I know it.

It's been way to long....

2010-08-09T21:52:00.001-07:00

Bug, A and I hanging out on the picnic table at the campground.

Since I last posted. Time has gotten away from me and every time I would look at my Blog I would think "there is so much that has happened" so I would get intimidated and decide not to catch up. So now I have decided to start with today and if I get a chance I will fill in between April and now.

We too our 1st camping trip of the year last weekend (not the one that just passed). Our friend Mike found us a new camper, which Blue went and picked up at the end of June and has been working on to get it all ready to go. It is a 'brand new' 1975 camper. Mike was talking to a gal about camping and she told him about the camper that they used when she was little. Well come to find out her parents divorced like 20 years ago and her mom got the house, the shop and the camper. well she was never comfortable driving the camper so she pushed it into the shop and there it has sat. So it does really look new inside, but very retro.

We decided for our 1st trip not to wander too far from home, so we went to a place called Nine Mile rec about 20 minutes from our house. It is on Long lake and has a nice swimming area and a big sand pit for Volleyball so the kids got very wet and very dirty. Bug made friends with a couple boys who stayed at the other end from us and they played from dawn till dusk on Sat. Then went and took a nice long shower so that he didn't track all that sand in to the camper. Also my friend from work, Amanda and her family came out for the day. The are looking at possibly adopting A, so they have been spending time with her to get to know her better and so that she will be comfortable around them. In fact Amanda just started her foster training class today, one of the 1st steps in becoming a licensed foster parent. If all goes well we are hoping to start the transition to their home sometime in Nov. But we are talking the foster care system so we won't start counting those chickens any time soon.

On Sun we headed out mid morning and took the kids out on the ATVs at the local ORV park, it was fun and we found a pretty good puddle that I managed to get stuck in. I was trying to get A off my bike and killed it in the process, so after I got off we waited for a bit for Blue and Bug to catch up, but they were taking so long I decided to try to get it out myself. So I stood on the foot area on the high side, got the bike started and managed to slowly drive myself out, I was so proud of myself. A was very upset though, she thought I was just driving away without her and I couldn't stop cause I was afraid the bike would get stuck again. After that we just roamed around the park. It was hard because I don't ride enough to have confidence in my ability and then having A on the back with me just made me more nervous. But it was still fun and both kids pouted when we told them it was to to go home.

Blue and Bug hanging out before we loaded up to head home.

Our Vacation so far...

2010-04-26T22:39:00.000-07:00

Our vacation so far has been wonderful. We headed out early Sat morning and spent the day driving to Klamath Falls OR, where we stayed in a little hotel for the night. We actually got in fairly early around 5:30. Sooner than we thought we would, the drive was nice. We had time to get dinner and play at a park for awhile before settling in for the night.

Sunday on the other hand was a very long day of driving. We got into Solvang after 8:00 at night, pretty much checked in and got Bug off to bed. We did get to try out the hot tub for a little bit before hitting the sack. It was a bummer getting in so late, because the condo seemed very nice. We will have to stay at this location again some time, Solvang was a cute little village, similar in feel to Leavenworth. It would be fun to have some time to explore.

But we got up and after a brief stop at an authentic Danish Bakery for some danish and apple fritters, we headed south. We got to Universal Studios around 11 this morning and the park was nice and empty. Bug had never heard of Universal Studios, so he was excited but didn't know what to expect. We started out grabbing a bite to eat and then headed over to Terminator T2 3D, Bug was nervous about it, he doesn't like scary things or loud noises, which this had both. He ended up taking off the 3D glasses, but he made it through and said "that was awesome" afterwards. Then we went and played in the Curious George Jungle for a bit, which is just an area with a bunch of balls and air shooters all over the place. Next we went and did the studio tour, very fun. I love getting to see all of those sets, we even saw Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives. They had a couple cute and somewhat scary adventures along the way, the neatest one was an underground subway tunnel that goes through an earthquake with us in it. That was fun.

After that we did the Animal Show, that has animal actors putting on a show, Bug loved that one. Then we ate some lunch and went to see the Shrek in 4D show, very cute the 4th dimension is air and water that gets you as different things happen in the show. Bug missed a lot of that since he was too short for the air to get him and had his feet tucked up so none of the floor stuff got him. I think that was Bug's favorite show/ride of the day. After that we were going to go on the Simpson's ride, but Don and Bug decided not to go, so I went by myself. It was a very strange experience. They kind of shuffle you around from area to area and you eventually end up in this room with a couple other people. In each of the areas it tells you a bit of the story of this new theme park and about side show Bob breaking out of jail to come to the park, then it opens the doors and you sit down and away you go, very fun. It was a bummer the guys missed it.

We also made it to the last showing of Waterworld, Don really wanted to see that one, but Bug and I weren't sure about going. In the end we all loved it, it's not like the other shows/rides. So long as you don't sit in the "soak" zone, this one isn't interactive. It's just watching a big production in front of you. It's amazing what they can do in this small bit of water, very entertaining.

We finished out day at Universal, by grabbing some dinner and checking out our pictures from the day. We ended up buying 2 and almost stayed in budget for the day, an amazing feat for us.

Then we all loaded in the car and braved the LA freeways with their traffic and headed south to Anaheim and our Condo. Even though we are 3 blocks from Disney and there is Disney stuff everywhere around here, it has still not occurred to Bug that we are going to Disney. I told our resort host that he had no clue we were going and she just laughed. At one point someone even asked him if he had gone to Disney and he said "no, we went to some movie place today." I love that kid, he's so oblivious sometimes. But in a great way, he is having fun on our adventure and just trusts that mommy/daddy have something fun planned for him and he is up for it, no matter what it is. I can't wait to see his face tomorrow when we pull up to Disney Land.

The Anaheim resort that we are staying at is very nice, we are going to some upgrade thing in the morning for our timeshare, where they will tell us that latest and greatest things about our timeshare. I figured we'll go since we get free breakfast, a gift and a 50.00 Am/Ex card, free money for our trip. I guess I better get to bed, it will be a long day tomorrow. Disneyland is open from 9-9 and I'm sure we'll be there for it all.

A lot going on.

2010-03-16T19:42:00.001-07:00

Life has been busy the last month. With the convenience of Facebook, it is getting harder to keep up with the blog. Bug is still loving school, he has his buddies and his routines and is getting better about being ready when it is time to leave. I have had a few people ask him if he misses his old school (the home school he went to 1 day a week) or homeschooling in general and his answer was a resounding "no". So I guess we made a good choice, though I still miss him during the days that he is gone and I'm not working.

That will be easier starting this week, since I started my new job today. I have always said that if we sent Bug to school I would go back to work for someone else. So the last month or so I have been trying to find somewhere I would like, that would work well around Bug's school schedule and last week I finally found it. The place is called Elements and it is a massage clinic, the one I am working at is located way up on South hill. I am working Tue & Thu 9-2, which fits very well with Bug's schedule and eventually I will work Mon-Thur, with Friday's off like Bug.

My 1st day went well, I had 3 people, 2 of which have already rescheduled. Everybody I have met so far has been really nice and the system for watching your schedule and filling out your insurance forms is fairly easy to use. It will just take some getting used to. It will be nice to have a paycheck again. There are a lot of things that I like about having my own business, the flexibility in my schedule, getting all of the proceeds from the massages and getting to work with clients, 1 on 1 over a long period of time. But I also miss, the easiness of just showing up somewhere, doing your job, going home and getting a paycheck every few weeks. It should also make paying Bug's tuition, that much easier.

Ashley has been doing well, she comes out of her shell more and more every day. She loves to chat up anyone who is around her and has suddenly become more attached to Don lately, following him around, wanting to go out and "help" him in the garage, and saying "I love Don." She had a court date last week that went well for her. They moved up her permanency hearing, so they should start making some more permanent decisions for her in early May.

We just got back from our 1st trip of the year to Seattle, it was a really nice trip. I got to spend time with my sister, niece and nephew. We went to NW Trek and the Museum of Flight and did a bit of shopping and just relaxed. It was nice to just get away for a bit.

But now we are back to the real world of work, school and visits.

Off to school.

2010-02-04T08:37:00.000-08:00

January is over and February is here. I know it's a cliche, but the older I get the faster time goes. We had a very busy January getting everything in order for Bug to head off to his 1st day at his new private school.

We had his annual testing done to see where he's at for the year, he did really well. He scored excellent in reading and is all caught up in math, right where he should be. I guess all that money for the private math teacher last year paid off. We also skied every Mon and Fri except one of each when the Gondola broke down and we had to miss a couple of days. Skiing is going good, he is improving each time and has gotten so adventuresome that I get a little nervous some times.

He has been playing basketball through Upwards and his games are on Sat mornings, a little early for us but it's fun to watch. Big difference between last year and this, not just in skill but in overall excitement of the games. Much faster moving this year.

So on Monday Bug started at his new school, he loves it, I'm happy for him but definitely miss him during the day. He only has to go 4 days a week so we still ski together on Fridays. This week he finished up his assessments to figure out where he is in their curriculum. He has a couple of small skills that he has to go back and learn but overall he is right where he is supposed to be. He should have all of his new books next week. I like this school because the kids work at whatever level they are at. There are (approx) 12 books for each subject and when your done with the books for that grade you move on to the next, whether that is at the end of the year, the middle of the year or sometime into the next year. The class is also 2-6 grade, so there is mixed ages to play with. Unfortunately right now there are only 2 boys in class, but that can change anytime, last year it was mostly boys, so we'll see.

This week he also got to go on his 1st field trip, they took the whole school ice skating. I tagged along but let Bug go in the school van with his new buds. We hadn't ice skated in awhile so it took him time to remember how, but by the end he was off chasing the other kids around the rink. Everybody seems really nice and they all tell me what a nice boy Bug is. Next week they will go have PE down at the Warehouse a big open gym downtown and then on Thur his class will have a valentine's party, so he should have another good week.

Ashley has been doing well also. We have been very busy so there was a week there that she was pretty fussy and clingy, but I have been making a point of spending more time with her so she has come around. She has become quite the chatter bug, she loves to follow me around and "help" me. Sometimes this can be great as she is really good at carrying things and taking them where you ask her, but sometimes it's a pain as she is under foot or bringing me things that I don't need. She has such a great grin that it is usually easy to forgive her. The one thing I have noticed that is so different about her versus Bug is that she gets into EVERYTHING. You can't leave her alone in a room without her picking things up or opening drawers or touching things. Bug has never been that way, he could hang out in our room and watch a show and never touch anything but the pillows and blanket. She will go through everything on the bedside tables, get into drawers and move everything around. Very frustrating.

I am planning on taking her roller skating tonight and hopefully that will give me a good idea of how she would do skiing. She has really been wanting to go with us so I am planning to take her maybe this Friday or next but am not sure how she will do. She likes to do things with us and overall is pretty hardy about outdoor things. But she can also be quite the whiner and give up easily if she is not in the mood to do something, so I will see how she does tonight and hopefully that will give me an idea of how she would do skiing.

As far as whats going on with her she has a court date coming up around the beginning of Mar, I don't get the feeling that much is going to change at this time, but who knows. It's all up to the judge really. Her social worker is coming by on Mon to see her morning routine, since she still cries for most of the 1st hour to hour and a half of the day. That way she can give the court a better idea of what her father would have to deal with if he had her back. I guess we'll see how it goes.

Fun day skiing but with a scary experience.

2010-01-11T22:00:00.000-08:00

Today was Bug's 2nd day of Home school skiing up at Silver Mt. The program just moved there this year and we have been very excited to try a new mountain this season. The deal is good 6 weeks with lift and lesson for 70.00. The instructors are very nice and the mountain is kid friendly. Bug has already made friends with 3 sisters who are in his group and has been enjoying the challenge of a new mountain.

So now on to the scary experience. After lunch today Bug and I went to check out parts of the mountain we haven't skied yet and ended up at an older style ski lift. The lift operator asked if we wanted it slowed down but Bug doesn't have any issues with lifts so we said no. Well I forgot that their snow coverage is really low, so the chair was a little high up. When Bug went to get on he missed and slipped off the front. Well I always grab him when he gets on a lift just to make sure, so I was holding him so he wouldn't fall and the guy could stop the lift. Well we passed the end point and he still hadn't stopped it. It took him at least 20 feet to stop the lift, at this point Bug is hanging off the lift from his chest down with my arm around his shoulders to keep him from falling. He of course is freaking out and his legs hurt from the weight of the skis dragging him down. I look down and the operator asks me "what we should do", so I asked him if he could back us up and he said "no, can you pull him up". Well at this point it is all I can do to keep him from falling.

So I ask the lift operator if he can take off his skis and realize that Bug is hanging 10 feet up in the air (from the bottom of his feet) and the guy can't even reach up to him. So I drop my poles and kick off my skis so I can wrap my legs around Bug. At that point he is at least fairly secure, so I get him calmed down and tell him to kick off his skis, he of course says he can't but after being encouraged he got it done fairly quickly. Without the skis I was able to pull him up in my lap and then he was able to climb over to his own spot.

The guy said he would send up our stuff and started the lift and away we went. Bug thought walking off the lift and sliding down the (lift) hill was great fun and kept wondering what was taking them so long getting us our stuff back. Once we got our skis and poles, (it took 3 different groups of people to get it all to us). We put on our gear and away we skied. Bug even headed off to the terrain park to do jumps. The only thing he said was just after I got him on the lift and we started going again he said "that was scary," I said yes it was but your OK now and mommy had you the whole time and would not have let you fall. That seemed good enough for him.

My boy was very brave, thank God for extra 'momma bear' strength when you need it.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-03T20:33:00.000-08:00

Welcome 2010! I am excited for the new year and had a wonderful New Year's Eve. We did what we have done for the last 6 years, since we moved over here. Our old neighbors have bon Fire every year so we start out at our friend's Mike and Cheryl house and had dinner and started the drinking. We headed over to Steve and Rachelle's around 9 on the ATV's and the kids ran around and the adults ate and drank.

Some of the guys went down and started a fire down by the lake, so we took the ATV's down there and then took them out onto the frozen lake. I rode on the back of mine with Mike driving, he's a crazy driver but I trust him. So I could be brave and chicken at the same time, flying 40 MPH across the lake or through the trees on the land was thrilling and terrifying, just the way to start the year.

The night flew by and next thing I knew we were counting down the last few minutes till midnight. The boys pulled poppers and some of the adults went out and lit fireworks. Bug of course went inside when that started, he hates the noise. After a few minutes we sent the boys back to house and off to bed, then we went back down to the fire and hung out until around 3. When we figured we better get to bed before the kids woke up. It's fun to party for one night a year, it was nice to feel young again.

On New Years Day we hung out at Mike and Cheryl's, (Mike had to go to work at 9 in the morning). It was awfully rainy that day but the boys got to play outside for a bit and I took Ashley out on the ATV for a bit. In the evening we went to Mike's parents house for a prime rib dinner. I had never actually had prime rib before, it was delicious and a great way to finish off the day. We hung out for awhile and then took the kids home to bed.

Overall it was great start to the New Year. Happy New Year to you all.

Christmas Eve & Christmas Day

2009-12-26T20:53:00.000-08:00

My Favorite Picture from Christmas Morning, this was before presents and after brunch.

I can't believe it's all over, it's always so hard after Christmas, the fun is over and all that's left is the cleaning and putting everything away.

Christmas Eve day was very productive around here, I should have taken before and after pictures of Bug's room. His room has been a disaster for quite awhile now. Every time we get it picked up it's destroyed again within a day or so. So I told him 3 days before Christmas that his room had to be clean if he wanted to be able to bring his gifts into his room. Of course being our son he procrastinated till the last day, so I decided to go in and help him. We made a big pile of everything in his room and then he decided (from his lessons from FLYlady) to divide stuff into 3 piles: keep, donate and toss. We went through everything in his room and I have to say I am extremely proud of my boy. He tossed out a kitchen sized bag one of those big black bags plus an IKEA bag of stuff to donate. We then moved the furniture around to give his more play area. Reorganized his books and closet, by the time we were done he had plenty of room for his new stuff.

Unfortunately that took up a big portion of the day, and since Don and I had decided that the new stereo I had gotten his was too big for his room. I had to hurriedly return it and go find a new one. I ended up finding the perfect one for him at Fred Meyer. We needed one that you could plug and Ipod into, but also had a CD player and radio. I had to buy the display model, but I got a good price on it and it had everything we wanted from JVC.

Bug and Ashley in front of the tree, Christmas Eve.

After that I rushed back to the house finished getting the kids ready and when my Uncle Marting got here we headed out to our Church service. It was beautiful, lots of singing intermixed with the telling of the Christmas story from the bible. It was Ashley's 1st time sitting through a service (even just a short one), she did pretty good.

Uncle Martin, Grandma & Ashley opening Grandma's stocking.

After Church we came home and had pizza (Don had cooked it while we were at church), with the 4 of us plus mom and uncle Martin. After dinner we opened our stockings and got the kids in their new Christmas jammies and got them off to bed. Then I wrapped the last few gifts and watched some Fringe with Don and we headed off to bed.

The kids slept in a bit Ashley got up around 7:30 and woke Bug up shortly after. I got up and got Ashley some oatmeal to tidy her over and then made some Pumpkin muffins. About the time I was getting those in the oven Don woke up and started making Brunch, I had a bit of an upset tummy, so I laid around until it was ready to eat. Then set out the muffins and the fruit salad I had made yesterday. Don made eggs with bacon and sausage. Not as much food as we usually had, but everything was delicious.

After everyone had finished brunch we settled down to opening presents. Bug was Santa's helper this year (with some assistance from grandma) and handed everyone their presents. We start by handing all the presents out and then take turns 1 at a time opening each gift. Ashley got the hang of it fairly quickly and only had to be reminded a couple of times to wait for her turn. Since the kids had more presents then everybody, by far. After 1 time around for everybody we would have the kids take a turn after each of us. So it went mommy, then Ashely then Bug, then daddy then Ashley then Bug and so on. The kids still finished well after us.

Bug opened his stereo 1st, but we kept his big presents for last. He received a bunch of games and books, some snow flingers and some new games and accessories for his Didj. After he thought he was all done, we gave him his Ipod, which he loved. I would have stopped then since he was so busy dancing around to his music, but Don said I had to give him the other one. So we gave him his DSi. He was ecstatic everything else was forgotten for about an hour or so, while he worked through all the different things on it.

Bug showing me his DSi, doesn't he look happy.

Ashley had so many presents that she looked to be buried in them. She got a new vanity to play dress up at in her room. A bunch of learning leapfrog toys, a couch and a baby stroller from grandma and some books and a little people doll house. After we got all the mess cleaned up and Bug had gone to his room to play his game. We set her back down and let her open up all the presents she got from her Bio family, she got some really cute clothes from 1 of her uncles and his family, some baby dolls and accessories from her grandma and a moving/barking dog, lots of books, a baby Ariel and some more clothes from her Aunt and cousin. She was very tired by the time she was done, so I fed her a sandwich and put her down for her nap.

Ashley with Uncle Martin behind her wall of presents.

We all spent the after noon just hanging out, watching some of our new movies, playing games and doing a lot of nothing. It was a great way to spend the day. Always nice to have a day to hang out with the family.

Almost ready for Christmas

2009-12-22T16:03:00.000-08:00

I love Christmas I even love all the hustle and bustle that comes before it. I think I am finally ready for Christmas. But as I type this I remember I still need to do the grocery shopping, so I guess I am almost ready.The house has been a huge mess, but between my cleaning lady and myself it is all pretty much back in order, (except Bug's room which is still a huge mess).

I got some organizing done in Ashley's room, her room is fairly small and we just don't have all the room that I would like for her toys. In Mar I will take a trip to IKEA and get some organizing stuff, but in the meantime I am finding bins and drawers from around the house to put things in. Now that I have got everything from her birthday put away, she is starting to get her Xmas things. She got some art things a backpack and some new Jammies today on her visit and if her birthday was any indication, there will be more things from her family coming throughout the week. It is nice for her that they all remember her and want to give her things, but it's hard to find places to put it. Even as I sit here we are waiting for her social worker to stop by with some more gifts and things that the family dropped off there for her.

Anyways it has been a fun week. We had our MOMS club adult Xmas party last Sat night. It's always fun to get to meet the other moms spouses and we had a fun get to know you game where we gave the host an interesting fact about each of us then we went around and tried to figure out who it was.

I also sold tickets for out annual Toys 4 Tots raffle baskets. One of the gals in our group did a great job getting the stuff and putting the baskets together (thanks Gabi), but was unable to sell the tickets and be at the presentation, so I took over for her. We also did a fun gift exchange Don got some raffle basket tickets and I got a Starbucks card.

On Monday we had our MOMS club kids Xmas party. I was very pleased with how it went and hope everybody had a good time. Brenda and I are the party planning committee for our group and with our Xmas committee (thanks Becky) planned out the kids party. We had it at our friend Meegans church and it was a great location for it. It was a brunch and we had games and crafts for the kids, a visit from Santa Clause plus gave a way the baskets from our T4T raffle. One of the Marines came to accept the money that we made, take pictures with the kids and he even pulled out the winning tickets as an impartial judge.

Bug won the 1st basket which had a bunch of school/art supplies and some bubble bath and skittles in it. We had 9 baskets in all, 2 of which were VERY popular. 1 was a pampering basket and had a 50.00 gift card to Spa Paradiso and a 50.00 gift to another spa plus a bunch of pampering things (comfy socks, bath salts, etc.). The other big one had 4 tickets to a hockey game, 4 tickets to the Woodland park zoo and 2 25.00 gift certificates to Fred Meyer and Target. My friend Michelle won the Pampering basket and I won the Fun basket (did I mention the impartial judge). I was so excited, I left it for the last one to call and figured I didn't have a chance after calling out the other 8 baskets.

I can't wait for our next trip to Seattle, Ashley is going to love the Woodland Park Zoo. Well I guess I better get Ashley over to daycare so I can get to work. Happy Holiday and a Merry Christmas to you all.

A christmas filled day.

2009-12-06T21:55:00.000-08:00

Saturday was so much fun. We overslept a bit but still managed to get out of the house on time (actually 3 minutes late according to Don). We got up to the Santa breakfast and found my friend Meegan and her family and joined them in line. After a bit another friend Kim was able to find us and we decided to save two tables so we could all sit by each other.

The party was incredible, it certainly lived up to all the hype my friends had given it and other than the fact that we waited along time for breakfast Ashley loved it. To be fair, they did the activities in shifts and it just so happened that we sat at a table that was in the 3rd round for breakfast. Oh well we'll know better next year and feed the kids at least a light breakfast before we go. The trees were fabulous, each kid gets 2 tickets to put into the boxes at the trees to try to win them. Bug chose a tree with a DSi and a bunch of Mario ornaments and stuff, and Ashley chose a tree with a mini kitchen set and table and chairs and we put the last 2 into ones that had stuff for the whole family. Sadly we didn't have beginners luck and Bug was very bummed not to get that DSi.

It was extremely hard to pick ones to put your ticket in, in the 1st place. They had at least 40 trees with everything from bikes, toys galore, a couple had DS's and DSi's, there were a couple with Ipods and 1 that had like 3 different stereos, portable DVD players with movies and another that had a Wii. My friend Kim's boys won 2 different trees, 1 with a bike and accessories and also the one with the Wii. Which I found very funny since that is what she had already bought for the boys for Christmas.

Besides the trees, we had a delicious breakfast, the kids each got a present, they got to visit Santa and get a picture, then pick out either a stuffed animal or a book (both kids picked the books). They even got to go in a back room and pick out a present for a parent. I told Ashley to pick one for her dad, (she picked him out a decorative house, I guess it will be the thought that counts) and told Bug to pick one for whomever he wanted. He chose me (aren't I loved), but assured me "it's not jewelry this time." I guess I know what he picked out for me at the Santa express the other day. Then as we left we got a mini turkey dinner meal to take home with us for later. Everything was very well done, and we really appreciated all the effort they put into everything. We'll have to sign up right away next year to make sure we can go again.

After the Santa brunch we took Ashley home for a nap and I took Bug over to get his Santa pictures. We did Ashley's last weekend and got a picture of them together with Santa at the Brunch. Then we tried to go over to a make-it, take-it event at Michael's, but they ran out of stuff early, so he didn't get to do them.

When Ashley got up from her nap we got ready to head out to Elk for their Christmas Bon Fire party, we have gone to it every year (except last year), since we moved over here. Last night's party was the best one yet and I love them every year. They upgraded everything this year, even the people it seemed like. It has always been a sort of down home affair, which is why I like it. It reminds me of when I was younger in Montana, just people hanging out and BSing around a big fire. But this year they added a little snack booth in the park and were serving up homemade goodies, also they raffled off a really nice Pampered chef basket. In the past the area where Santa sits has a big tree that the kids decorate and a picnic bench thrown up there for Santa to sit on. This year they had a really nice tree with a proper seat for Santa and some smaller decorative trees around it. Also someone handed out some books and we all stood around the fire and sang Christmas carols while we waited for Santa to come. Then the kids got to go sit up on Santa's lap and tell him what they wanted and then he gave them each a present. It was a little bag, with a big candy cane, a kaleidoscope, a neat pencil and a few other trinkets that the kids just loved. After Santa had given all the kids their bags, they announced the winner of the basket. Not me, bummer I guess it just wasn't our day to win anything. Then the kids and I headed out and went to Mike and Cheryl's for a bit and to pick up E to come spend the night.

The boys didn't get to bed until nearly 10, with all their talking and then were up and running at 5:00 this morning. On our way back from taking E home, Bug fell asleep and ended up taking almost a 2 hour nap. I had to wake him up so that he could go to the audition for Charlotte's web that the Children's Theater is putting on this winter. He ended up doing good on the singing part but not great on the acting part (which is backwards for him). So I don't know if he will get a part or not. I guess we will see on Tue, keep your fingers crossed for him. He is hoping to be one of the goslings.

Here's to a wonderful week.

2009-12-04T22:08:00.000-08:00

This has been a really nice week. Full of mostly fun things.

On Tue Bug had the stomach flu (not a fun thing), but was only sick a few times in the night and then was fine after that. So he laid around and listened to the 3rd harry potter book on cd and I got the tree up and finished the Christmas decorating.

In the evening I went out with some of my MOMS club friends to the Melting Pot for cheese, chocolate and a drink, all of which were very nummy and the conversation wasn't bad either. It's so nice to just sit and chat with the girls.

On Wed night my dear hubby and I went out for a nice date. We weren't up for a movie (our usual date night). So I suggested we go to Twigs and have a drink and visit. Apparently Don has never been to Twigs, unbelievable after living in this town so long. We had a fabulous time, just us, a couple drinks, a nice appetizer and then desert to share and a lot of uninterrupted conversation. We sat and visited for almost 2 hours, and we even managed to spend most of that time NOT talking about the kids. It's nice to know we still have stuff to chat about after all this time.

On Thur I had a great day with my boy. We headed out after Ashley was picked up for her visit and headed to Costco to pick up a few things and then over to his piano lessons. Then we headed downtown and picked up our tickets to the Broadway production of Lion King. Then I took him over to Santa Express and he did all his Christmas shopping. He got his paycheck the other day for the last commercial he did, so he even spent his own hard earned (kind of) money on the gifts. After that we grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed over to watch the show.

The Lion King was exceptional, the animals were wonderful especially the giraffes. If you ever get an opportunity to see this production, GO. I can't say enough great things about it. Bug also loved it, especially the special effects, some blow holes and the scene where the water disappears. It was so much fun to see it with him and not only enjoy it myself, but to watch his excitement. Thank you mom, for such a wonderful Christmas gift.

Today I finally had a very busy day at work, it has been VERY slow at work lately, I used to bill out between 8-12 people a week and lately it's been more like 3-5, not good. Today I did 6 massages back to back, with 2 of them being people who just walked in. It was nice to be so busy it always amazes me how quickly the day goes by when your busy.

I am really looking forward to tomorrow. It is the Santa brunch for Foster/adopt families. I have heard that this event is fabulous. After seeing Ashley's excitement with all things Christmas so far, I think she is going to have a blast tomorrow. There are decorated trees, presents and a visit from Santa, plus of course her favorite thing, food. I'll try to take some pictures of everything and post them later this week.

I hope all of your holiday preparations are going well.

Happy Birthday Ashley

2009-11-28T22:22:00.001-08:00

Today is Ashley's 3rd Birthday. We all had a nice day together. We started today with our Family tradition of Birthday pancakes. A bear shaped pancake with Happy Birthday written out.

Which Ashley thoroughly enjoyed. Bug was the one that reminded me last night that we had to have pancakes in the morning. It's so nice when family traditions take root in our children's hearts.

After that Ashley opened a couple of her presents from us. She was very cute, anytime she left her presents she would make sure to tell whoever was around not to touch it, that they were her presents. I'm going to take that as confirmation that she liked the presents.

We then had an early lunch and put her down for her nap. Unfortunately Bug woke her up after only 35 minutes or so. So we hung out for a bit and then headed out to pick up her cake from Costco and head to the Y for her Party.

The party went well, I forgot to bring candles, so we just sang happy birthday and then cut the cake.

Afterwards we opened presents and then got all the kids ready to swim. She had a great time and I think the rest of the kids did too. After we got home we had a quick dinner of McD's and then let her open the rest of her presents from us and Grandma and 1 more that she didn't get a chance to open at the party. She loved everything and it was so cute to see her get excited over each new gift. She got ponies and barbies and bath toys and a Dr. kit and a little lap top computer for her to use when we are all on ours. Everything a little girl needs to make for a fabulous birthday.

Thanks to everyone who helped us to celebrate this momentous day in her life. We feel so lucky to get to share it with her.

Pictures from Seattle

2009-11-14T23:13:00.001-08:00

Here are some of the pictures from our recent trip to Seattle, the quality isn't very good, since they were taken with one of those disposable cameras.

Ashley just off the monorail, doesn't she look thrilled. It was a long walk to get to the Seattle Center and she hadn't yet seen the toys.

Ashley playing on the obstacle course at the Seattle Children's Museum.

This is the kids working on a Paper Mache pumpkin, doesn't Bug looked thrilled? He kept wanting to go wash his hands, he did not like the way the paste felt on his hands.

The kids working on their desk in the building area of the Seattle Children's Museum.

All of us together with the finished desk.

Ashley with her buddy Ernie at the Seattle children's Museum.

Bug performing in the play he made up with some of the other kids and then dragged all of the adults that he could to watch him. The other kids ran the lights and the sound effects. Seattle Children's Museum.

Bug and Ashley with Big Bird. Seattle Children's Museum.

Here are the kids on Ashley's 1st ride (that I know of) on the Monorail.

Ashley playing in the water feature, after washing her hair in it. At the Bellevue Children's Museum.

Bug playing in the water with a friend that he made at the Bellevue children's Museum.

Ashley heading up into the treehouse at the Bellevue Children's Museum.

The family Rock Band at the Bellevue Children's Museum.

Flashback Friday

2009-11-13T22:52:00.000-08:00

I spent today cleaning out a cupboard in our living room and came across Bug's old Comp. card from when he was a baby. Even back then he was a little ham. These were taken when he was 7 months.

Catching up.

2009-11-12T18:36:00.000-08:00

It always amazes me how quickly time flies. I get on here in what seems like a couple of days and it turns out to have been a couple of weeks.

We had a great trip to Seattle for Halloween. We got in late on Fri, the 30th and stayed with my sister. After a leisurely morning, we headed to the Tacoma zoo, with my sister and her 2 God children (my niece and nephew's, brother and sister who's mom died last spring). Ashley loved the animals and Bug loved running around and playing with DJ and Aji. We hung out there until around 4 then headed home for a quick dinner and to get everybody ready for trick or treating. We ended up getting up to the neighborhood after 6:30 (we have gone to the same neighborhood, every year for about 8 years). We met up with my friend Tonia and her girls and slowly made our way around the neighborhood. I had Ashley in a stroller so she could keep up with all the big kids. We ended up with 10 kids in all between the ages of 14 down to Ashley at 2. They all ended up with plenty of candy, including quite a few full sized candy bars. Anissa ended up heading out with her kids about 20 minutes before we did, I tried to find a house we used to go to that had a mini haunted house set up, with snacks and cider for the kids, but they must not be doing it anymore since we couldn't find them. Afterwards we stopped at Taco Time for a quick bite to eat, then headed back to Anissa's and got the kids to bed.

In the morning I took the kids to Picture People to get their photos done, we got photos of each of the kids in their Halloween costumes and then a coupe together and then switched them into their Christmas outfits and took individuals and a couple of them together again. We ended up with a really cute individual picture of Ashley in her costume and Bug in his Xmas outfit, then 1 cute of them in their costumes, and 2 in their Xmas clothes. I will have to scan them is and put them on here to show you.

While we waited for the pics, we had some lunch and the kids played on the play structure at the mall. Then we went and dropped off some clothes for Donald (Bug's older brother), unfortunately we didn't get to see him. So the kids played at a really neat park in Tacoma, I wished I had pictures of the play equipment, it looked like something that monkeys would play on, the kids had a blast. Then we went and picked up Anissa, so she could drive us to our condo in Seattle and stopped at the Cheesecake Factory along the way for dinner, yum.

We got things settled in the condo around 8 and got Ashley off to bed and Bug and I watched Kung Fu Panda. Ashley ended up with the bedroom to herself, as Bug and I shared the Murphy bed in the living room.

On Mon we walked down to Westlake center and took the monorail down to the Seattle Center and spent the afternoon at the Children's Museum, the kids got to make paper mache pumpkins (which I forgot to take with us, bummer). They had a really fun exhibit from Sesame Street about the body and the kids spent most of their time in there. Although Bug did spend time in the construction room and built a desk and chair, while Ashley handed him screws and wing nuts (she called them Mickey's) and then put on a show for a whole group of adults that he dragged into the Theatre. Ashley had a great time painting in the art area and checking out the animals on the mountain.

After, the Children's Museum I discovered that they had "The Body" exhibit over by Westlake, so I dragged the kids through that. If you have never heard of this, it is fascinating. They take real live bodies and dissect and preserve them in different ways to show you all the different structures, muscles and organs of the body. The kids did really good, Bug had a device to listen to and payed attention to about 2/3 of the exhibit before finding and buying a grossology book in the gift shop. Ashley just followed us around, telling us she was "hungwy" asking for her cereal, (you're not aloud to eat at the exhibit), asking if it was time to go, "few mo' minutes?" And checking out a few of the displays. I would love to have spent a couple hours there, but was happy for the time that the kids allowed me.

After that we headed back to the condo and had dinner then got Ashley ready for bed, she went out like a light and Bug and I watched a movie together, then he laid down on the Murphy bed and I watched "Bride Wars," very cute.

In the morning we relaxed and got things repacked, then my sister came to bring us back the car, she kept it for us since parking in downtown is astronomical. Then we headed over to Bellevue and checked out their Children's Museum, which we had never been to before. It was very nice, it had a real Semi truck that the kids could crawl around and pretend to drive. A large water play area, where Ashley got completely soaked, (I ended up running next door and buying her an outfit at the Carter's store). A really neat tree house area, and an air tube area, that you put scarves in and see where they will blow out at.

Next we headed to North Bend and had lunch and did a little shopping. I got some cute shirts and Halloween clothes at Gymboree and found some pants that finally fit Ashley at the Children's Place, plus we grabbed a snack at Rocky Mountain chocolate and new Sketchers for Bug from the Sketcher outlet. We finally headed home around 3:30, stopped for dinner in Ritzville and got home right around 8:00. Just in time to get the kids bundled off to bed.

It was a really relaxing trip, mainly because we didn't see anybody while we were over there. It was nice to have our schedule to ourselves, but is a shame we won't have a chance to see the family and Donald until March when we head over for our 1st trip for next year.

It's been a month!

2009-10-24T21:55:00.000-07:00

Yay, it has now been just over a month since we got Ashley. She is adjusting fairly well, though of course still has moments of sadness, or asking about her daddy. We have been very busy though, so it generally passes very quickly.

Last Sunday after church we went out to our friends Mike and Cheryl. Ashley was in hog heaven, she loves animals and kept calling their place a farm. She got to see the horses and pet the dogs, she just loved following those dogs around, throwing the ball for them and petting and hugging them when she could. It was nice for Bug to get to spend a day playing with his buddy E, we have all been so busy that they haven't seen each other since Bug's bday party. We headed home at around 7 and I figured out about half way home that I had forgot my cell phone.

So when I got home, I called Mike to have him look around for it, unfortunately, I must have lost it when I was out riding the dirt bike, so I had to call the insurance company and have them send me a new one, which they took till Wed to do. In the mean time I felt like half my brain was missing.

On Tue I hosted a Fall Fest party for my MOMS club, it seemed to go well, I am always worried we won't have enough, so I ended up over buying and having plenty left over for the next event. Ashley didn't get to go because she has her visits with her dad on those days, but Bug had a great time, we put him in charge of face painting and tattoos, which he had a blast with. His pumpkins looked more like apples, but they were cute apples and his hearts looked really nice.

On Wednesdays, Bug goes to school and Ashley goes to daycare, so I got a few things done around the house in between clients. Then Thursday, Bug and I hung out, we went to the library and then down to the local children's museum to meet up with some of his friends. Then I took him and dropped him off with grandma and they went out on a date to have dinner and see the play Pirates of Penzance. I then picked up Ashley from daycare and gave her some apples to eat when we got home, (she had already had dinner at the daycare), while I made myself some dinner. All of a sudden I noticed it was really quiet and I looked over and there she was asleep in her chair at the table with an apple still in her hand. I took her and got her ready for bed and the 1st thing she said when she woke up was "I want my apples." Such an appetite on that one, she would eat us out of house and home if left to it.

On Friday we went with Bug's school for a field trip to an Alpaca farm. Unfortunately it was raining cats and dogs, but the kids still had a good time, especially Ashley, since she loves animals so much. Bug asked some really good questions and we got to see two babies that had just been born that morning. It was amazing how active they already were. The kids got some really nice coloring books that they worked in on the way to take Ashley to daycare, then I dropped off Bug at home with grandma and headed to work. After work since Bug's football practice was canceled due to rain, we decided to go to his Cub scouts Halloween Carnival, so I got the kids all dressed packed up treats and Bug's pumpkin for the carving contest and drove on over to the school, to see that everything was dark, so I called the main gal to see what was up and found out from her husband that it had been canceled, boy did those 2 cry, they were both so bummed. So we ran home to see if anything else was going on but by this time it was after 7,so the only things going on were for older kids. So I ended up just putting them both to bed early.

This morning Bug had his last football game of the season, the whole team played really well and had some very nice offensive plays including one completed pass, that was run in for a touch down. Bug has made huge improvements this season and did a good job of paying attention today up until about the last 10 minutes. He even ran the ball 2 times and got a 1st down both times. Way to go.

After the game we went to TRU to look around and they had an event where the kids could build their own Lego cars and race them. They both though that was really cool. Then we went to Michael's to get some pumpkins to decorate and then to Ross to get some snow boots for Bug. We had planned to go to Border's Spooktacular celebration, but they don't have a location out in the valley where we were. So we grabbed some lunch and killed some time until the Trick or Trunk that I had read about and then we went to that. It was a very nice event with probably 20 cars or so and then you got to go inside for donuts and cider after you were done. The kids had a good time and I got some really cute pics of them in their costumes. Bug was Simba and Ashley was Piglet. Ashley was so funny, the kids were allowed to take two candies at each trunk and so she would grad one and every time I would tell her to grab another one, she would put back the 1st and grab a different one. I generally had to grab at least one of her candies each time. She did a fabulous job of saying thank you though each time which is something we have been REALLY working on with her.

3 weeks with Ashley

2009-10-12T20:36:00.000-07:00

Ashley seems to be adjusting well to living here. She had a sad day this morning missing her mom and dad, but we cuddled and talked about it and she seemed to feel a little better. I met with her new social worker today to see what the plans were for her. Right now they are going to start services for her dad to help him develop the skills to take care of her independently. I guess they also have 2 family members that they are still looking at as possibilities. One lives out of state and one isn't returning calls, so I guess we will see what happens. But for now we are perfectly happy to have her living with us.

She is starting to say please independently, but still doesn't say any hellos, goodbyes or thank yous but we are working on it. She is getting used to the routine around here, although she still hates baths and generally cries at some point during them. She has stated playing little jokes though, giving us a little push or dropping something and then looking at us like "now what are you going to do," with a little smile. She loves to play outside and seems to be enjoying her new daycare. She still adores Bug and grandma and is getting more comfortable with both Don and I.
Her hardest time are falling asleep at night and getting up in the morning, she is an early riser and is usually up when Don's alarm goes off at 6am. She always asks for me when she sees him and sometimes she lays back down and even occasionally falls back asleep, but gets back up again as soon as she hears me walking around. Then she comes and hangs out with me until Bug gets up and they start their day.

Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

2009-10-12T19:41:00.001-07:00

Here are some pictures of the kids from our trip to the pumpkin patch last Friday. There was no school that day due to teacher in service so Bug got to have one of the older school kids from MOMS club to hang out with for part of it. We went to a local farm that has a huge corn maze with a castle in the middle. We actually made it to the middle without cheating for the 1st time. The kids had a good time on their quest. After the maze we went and rode on these big pedal cars, they look like go carts only you pedal them. Then the kids went on the little train ride and then we went on the big rain ride all together. And finished the day off by finding some nice little pumpkins for all of us.

A full week with Ashley

2009-09-28T20:56:00.001-07:00

Ashley on her 1st morning here, no smiles for the camera.

Today is the mark for our 1st full week with Ashley, it has been a good week. She is slowly coming out of her shell and showing us more of her personality. I had to work at the JBF sale, on Thur - Sun, so she got to spend a lot of time with other people, but has still adjusted fairly well.

Ashley "helping" Bug with his piano lessons on her 3rd day here.

On Thursday she was watched by my mom, she calls her grandma and already is very attached to her. We figured this out on Wed, the 1st 2 times she met her, she didn't really say much. Then on Wed morning when she came upstairs to leave for work, Ashley went running for her saying "gwama". She has adored her every since and she and grandma and Bug had a great time together on Thur.

Ashley taking a nap on her 4th day here, she apparently read herself to sleep.

She went and stayed with my friend Meegan and her 3 little ones on Friday, she seemed to do well and didn't fuss when I left, she ended up making fast friends with Meegan's little girl. In the evening she went with Don and Uncle Martin to Bug's football practice. She had fun running around and watching the boys play.

On Saturday she had a really hard morning, she tends to get up in the night and got up several times, Friday night. Then she woke up very early on Sat. I had to work that morning, so Don got to deal with a cranky little girl. In the morning, she was hiding from him and being really quiet, but did better after he took her outside to play. Then at football, she had a meltdown, so Uncle Martin ran her around to play and chipper her up. By the time I got there she was in a fairly good mood, but easily frustrated. So when we got home I put her straight down to nap, but by then she was so tired she wouldn't go to sleep. By the time she finally fell asleep. I headed out to go check out the 1/2 price presale at the JBF sale. I got Ashley a ton of clothes throughout the sale, hopefully she stays with us at least through the winter or Don will be extra mad about the money I spent.

Our 1st family picture a little blurry but still cute.

After the sale I went and met Don and the kids at Shogun's, I was a little concerned about Ashley's food pickyness, but knew she liked steak. Turns out she also LOVES fried rice, I think we even snuck a few veggies in while she was eating the rice, though she was as careful as she could be to pick around them. The dinner was a blast, and the fire and show were both fascinating and a little alarming to her, though she seemed to enjoy it overall. At the end of dinner Bug went and told the staff that it was Daddy's birthday, so they came and dressed him up, sang to him and took our picture. It was a fun family night out.

On Sunday, I took her to Church with Bug and I. She had a really good time in class, she really seems to enjoy playing with other kids. Of coarse everybody thought she was just adorable. We left after the 1st service so as not to overwhelm her, plus I had to work at JBF in the afternoon. When we got home we had some lunch and relaxed for awhile, then I headed out to work. Don put the kids to bed at the end of the day and she took quite awhile to fall asleep, but was out by the time I got home at 9:30 or so.

Ashley with Bug and Don at Don's birthday, full of smiles for the camera.

Today we had another very busy day, Bug had a dentist appt this morning, pretty good overall and no cavities. He also got his sealants put on since his 6 year molars are finally in. Ashley was just fascinated by watching what the assistant was doing to him. It was good for her to watch since she has her own appt with the dentist in Oct. and hasn't been to see one since she was around 1. Also she does not like having her teeth cleaned. She has obviously been allowed to brush her own teeth, without any adult interference, and freaks out when you try to give her teeth a good brushing. She lets me get in and move the brush around a little, but won't let me touch the front sides of any of them.

After the dentist our MOMS club had an open house today at a local ice cream parlor, needless to say Ashley was very excited about getting ice cream. She is not liking her somewhat restricted diet and all the new veggies that are popping up on her plate, so ice cream was a real treat. After running to Costco, we headed home for nap time and Bug's school work. When Ashley got up we went to her WIC appt and ended up just picking up her vouchers, the real appt will be next month. Then we ran downtown for an audition for Bug, it is for a print ad for Brooks shoes, they are shooting it on Thur and Fri, so we should know fairly quickly if he gets it or not. Cross your fingers for him. Then we took him to his theater class and ran to the store, then over to a play place for awhile, where she got to play with a little girl and her brother.

Tomorrow, we will be at home most of the day, and she will be off for a visit with her dad in the morning.

Catching up with Bug

2009-09-23T21:11:00.000-07:00

As you can see from our other posts it has been a big week for the family. But I thought I should catch up with what is going on in Bug's life. He is in 2nd grade this year, still being schooled at home, but now goes to school 1 1/2 days a week, a regular day on Wed and and an enrichment day on Fridays. He is really enjoying his away school this year and came home from his 1st day saying I love school (but finished that by saying he wouldn't want to go every day.)

Homeschooling seems to be going better this year, whether that is because he is getting older or because I am attempting to be more organized this year I am not sure. We also changed our curriculum this year and we both seem to really enjoy this new one. I have also started putting all of his work for the day in folders labeled Sun-Sat. Then at school time he goes down and finds that day's folder and starts to work, then when the folder is empty he is done with school for the day. Also we added school to his chore chart, and that gives him a visual reminder to get it done, so he can earn his afternoon ticket.

Overall this has been working especially well, although on Mon he decided to get snotty and tell me he wasn't going to do his schooling, so I let it go. Then that evening I moved all of his work for Mon and put it in with all of his Tue work, so when he went down on Tue, he said "gosh there's a lot of work in here." So I asked him what did he think would happen to his Monday work when he chose not to do it and he said "move to today?" And I told him "YEP," I think he got the point. He didn't fuss too much about it and although it took him most of the day to get it all done he did make his way through all of it and got all caught up.

He has made some new friends at school and also has been spending time with some friends from MOMS club that just started homeschooling this year, he went to a class at the local children's museum with them last week and they are being kind enough to take him with them again this week, so he doesn't have to hang out ALL day with grandma and Ashley tomorrow.

He is adjusting some what to having Ashley in the house. Although the whole social experiment of having a sister is already Kaput. He has figured out that she is unable to play with him 'exactly' the way that he wants to play and her following him and constant questions are starting to wear on him. He has taken to hiding in his room, to play 'alone'. When we went to pick him up at school today and I asked him to let Ashley play out on the field with him, he refused and had to be told by one of his friends to "let his sister play too".

He does enjoy playing with her when he feels like it and likes to read her stories, which is beyond cute to watch. He has always been one to micromanage things when you try to play with him (I'm sure that is the only child coming out in him). There have been plenty of times where I have stopped playing with him because he is yelling at me, because I haven't said something or done something exactly the way he has told me to.

I think as time goes on he will enjoy the companionship more and learn to be more flexible in how he plays. She really likes him already and is constantly asking about his whereabouts. She is quiet in nature and not overly demanding and I am sure he will warm up to that as time goes by.

We have had only one big incident so far and that was this evening, up till now he just goes off to his room to play and closes the door and she wanders around until he comes back out to play with her. But tonight he was playing in his room and she was helping me with dinner, so when dinner was done I sent her to tell him. So she went to his room and knocked like we are teaching her and he opened the door and I heard her say dinner and he yelled "I'm not playing with you and slammed the door on her." Don went back and told him he could just go to bed if he was going to be so rude and we ate dinner without him. After dinner Don went and talked to him and he came out and apologized and had some dinner.

After he was done eating I took him to my room and talked to him about his behavior. I reminded him that we had decided as a family to invite Ashley to live with us. We talked about the fact that she had no family to take care of her and how would he feel if the situation was reversed and he had to live with a bunch of strangers. Hopefully it will give him some food for thought. He put himself to bed early tonight, though he did read Ashley a story before bed.

Day 3 with Ashley

2009-09-23T19:59:00.000-07:00

This morning Ashley had her OT assessment, which she passed with no problems, she scored a 38% which is a smidge low, but well withing normal limits. I wasn't too concerned about her after just observing her the last couple days, she colors well and can put the top clip on her car seat together and a couple other things that seemed right on task.

After that we went to my friend Brenda's house to do her and her husbands massages. She was very quiet and well behaved while we were there, she loves to pet Brenda's cat and see her fish. After that we grabbed a bite to eat and took it home for lunch, then I laid her down for a nap, the next door neighbor kept an eye on her while I ran to work to do a massage. When i got back she woke up and we went up to Bug's school to pick him up. It was fun at school taking her around and introducing her to everybody. Of course everybody thinks she's adorable, she just kept looking at everybody like "who are these people and why do they keep talking to me."

Shortly after we got home, her social worker came over to give us her paperwork and ask us a few questions and see her room. It was nice to get a little more info from her about Ashley's background and family history. Also they have a court date this Friday for her to change her status from voluntary placement to mandatory and we should get an idea of where this will go from here at that time. Depending on how the court date goes.

After that Don got home and I started dinner with Ashley's constant chatter to help me out, we had fajitas for dinner, she is a good eater, but made sure to eat around any veggies that might be hiding in there. Then she went and had Bug read her a story while I got the kitchen cleaned up and then the kids brushed their teeth together and then we showed her how I finish up on Bug's teeth. She did much better letting me brush her teeth today then she did yesterday. She didn't allow me much access but at least she didn't scream, cry and cover her mouth, that is great progress in just one day. After that we did jammies and a book and she laid down. It still took her at least an hour to fall asleep, but there was no fussing or crying this evening. She just quietly talked and only got up to play with the door a few times and is now out cold as you can see by this picture.

PS. For all those who have asked Ashley is 2 and will be 3 at the end of November.

Days 2 with Ashley

2009-09-22T19:14:00.000-07:00

Today was a pretty mellow day around here. Ashley slept through the night, although she must have woken up at some point because we closed her door completely after she fell asleep and when I got up at 6:30 it was open but she was still in bed sleeping. She is an early riser and gets up around 7 and comes out to hang out with me. We gave her a bath for the 1st time which I had been warned was something she did not like. It went much better than I thought it would. No high pitched screaming or kicking or anything, she didn't want to sit down in the bathtub and would whine when I poured the water on her. But overall she did really well.

When I got her out of the bath and dried her off I slathered her up with lotion since she seems to have a touch of eczema. Then we got on her diaper, (she is not potty trained yet) and got dressed. She even let me put her hair in 2 little piggie tails, very cute. We had a bit of confusion with getting dressed, since she wanted to pick something out of her jammie drawer instead of getting clothes out of the closet, but we got it worked out.

She had a visit with her dad today from 10-12 (she goes on Tue & Thur) and came back in a fairly good mood. Unfortunately when I asked if she had been fed lunch they said no, but she had been given cookies and crackers and juice. I can tell that is going to be a difficulty, since she has been fed on mac n cheese and chicken nuggets for most of her life. We are trying to work really hard to get her used to a better more healthy diet.

Anyways after a good lunch I put her down for a nap, she sleeps for about an hour and a half. After nap she got up to play and hang out downstairs while Bug finished up with his schooling. I had to head to work for a bit in the evening so uncle Martin watched the kids for a little bit between when I left and when Don got home. After work Don headed to the fire dept so I made pancakes and eggs for me and the kids. Ashley is very interested in cooking and constantly asks me questions about everything I do and then repeats the last few words of anything I say. She seemed very excited about me making eggs, but when dinner came she ate the pancake and wouldn't touch the egg, when I suggested she eat one bite, it was not a pretty sight. I tried sneaking a bite into her mouth and she grabbed it out of her mouth and wiped her tongue off again and again, saying "don't like, don't like." Oh well I guess we will just have to go with the exposure method, if the food is on her plate enough times eventually she may try some. (BTW she also reacted the same way the night before when I suggested she try some veggies, though i didn't sneak any in on her that time.

After dinner the kids played for a bit and then I got Ashley ready for bed, she takes quite awhile to fall asleep, I don't know if that is just the usual for her, or if she normally had a late bedtime, or if I am missing something in her normal bedtime routine, (ie. music, a particular stuffed animal, fan or white noise, etc). She is fairly quiet about it and if she gets up and peeks out the door I just tell her it's bedtime and she goes and lays back down. She cried for a minute or less this evening for daddy, but I think it was just because she had seen him today and after I went in and reminded her it was bedtime, she quited down and eventually fell asleep.

Our 1st day with Ashley

2009-09-21T21:59:00.000-07:00

We went and picked up our new foster girl Ashley this morning around 9:30. It has been a good day, we started out by taking her shoe shopping. She came with quite a few bags of stuff but only one pair of sandals. I have been wanting to try out a shoe store downtown that specializes in fitting children's shoes. I always worry about having good shoes for Bug since I have always had foot problems.

Anyways we ended up buying 2 new pairs of shoes for each of them, and then headed over to where Don is working answering phones while he is out with an injured foot and had some lunch with him. Then we brought her home and showed her, her new room and her new stuff.

She is very cute, with dark blond hair and gorgeous blue eyes. She seems well taken care of, she is quiet and tends to repeat what you say to her, she also likes to color and will color on any paper if handed some sort of writing utensil. She really likes animals and was very excited when we stopped over at my friend Brenda's house to get to pet her cat and see her fish.

She is a good eater, but you can tell she has been fed too much junk food, when we were walking around downtown anytime anyone mentioned food she's say Donalds? Also when we went to the store in the evening she pointed out every junky thing along the way, cookie? cake? chips? But she ate the home made steak sandwiches we had for dinner but cried when I tried to get her to take 1 bite of the veggies.

We have been told that she doesn't like baths, so I decided she has had enough change for the day and didn't attempt a bath this evening. She had a hard time falling asleep, this evening, but didn't cry or fuss about it, she either talked quietly in her bed or got up and looked out the door. After about an hour she was out. hopefully she sleeps through the night.

It's amazing what you forget about having little ones around, I was prepared for the diapers but forgot about having to get then in an out of car seats, how slowly they walk and get around and how much more supervision they need. Overall it was a good 1st day, tomorrow I figure out daycare.

Football & Fair Day

2009-09-19T21:41:00.000-07:00

Bug had his 2nd football game of the season today. He is playing upwards flag football, he enjoys it but as with most sports he drives his dad and I nuts. He gets out there and dances and plays around while the game is going on. The boy with the ball could run right by him and he would never even notice. But I guess we should be thankful he is a good sport and always cheers on his team and is having fun. He has 2 boys on his team that do especially well, one is the shortest boy on the team, but he runs like the wind and the other one must be close in age to Bug and really does a good job of keeping his head in the game.

I ended up going to talk to one of the league officials today, Upwards has a lot of very specific rules especially about rotation of players and making sure all the kids have equal playing time. Well at the last game Bug was supposed to be a starter and the 1st thing the coach does is sit him out, so I thought well that is strange but just let it go, then I figured out that the coach was sitting him out every time they were on defense, he ended up not playing defense the entire game.

So when I got there today I went and found one of their special rule books and looked it up to see if I had it wrong. I found out the coach had been in error, but had planned to just let it go. Then they went through the lineup and Bug was a starter again (you move up each week in the rotation, so last week he was number 5 of 6 and this week he was in position 4), so the 1st thing the coach does is sit him out again. So I headed back up to the main area to check the rule book and see if I missed something. As I was checking out the book a league official was standing by me so I asked him about it and he said that was not the way it should go. So I gave him the details figuring he could go talk to the coach later to better explain the rotation, but he ended up going out with the coach there in the middle of the game and showing him how he was supposed to be doing. I felt kind of bad at 1st but it wasn't only my boy who sat out on all the defensive plays last game, or who was sat down when he should have started, so I figure it's better to get it fixed now and enjoy the rest of the season.

So after the game we headed over to the fair. Don hurt his foot a couple of weeks ago at work and is still on crutches, so I went and rented a wheel chair to push him around in. We started out by grabbing some lunch, then Bug went and rode the rides, then we looked through most of the sellers booths. By then Don's foot was hurting him pretty bad, so he headed home. Bug and I continued to have a great time, riding rides and looking around. We even caught a hypnotist's show, which totally fascinated Bug. We missed the part where he hypnotized the people and Bug kept asking me how it worked and how to hypnotize people. I tried to explain it to him but never did come up with an answer that totally satisfied him. So we went back at the end of the night and caught the 8:30 show. We got to see him hypnotize the people, but didn't get to watch the whole show because Don had come back by then to pick us up.

Bug did discover that he has a new favorite ride now though. It is the graviton, you know the one that is shaped like and space ship and you are closed inside standing against these panels against the wall and as they spin it the panels lift up and your feet leave the ground and it fells like your sitting in the air. He loved it and wanted to ride it "a bazillion" times.

Our new girl

2009-09-18T20:24:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, we went through all the hoops to get our foster care license this summer so that we could bring a daughter into our home. We are planning to do foster care and eventually to adopt a little girl. We are looking for a girl aged 2-4 years old, somebody past the baby stage, but still young.

Well we finally got a call yesterday, on Monday we will go pick up our new foster girl Ashley. She is 2 years old and will be 3 in Nov. Sadly her mother is deceased and her father is unable to take care of her. Right now she is in voluntary placement while her father tries to get things together or they try to find a family member that can take her more permanently. If neither of those things work out she may stay more permanently.

Bug is beyond excited to bring her home, when we went to meet her last night and I told him it was time to go, he thought we were taking her home with us right then and there. He was disappointed to find out that she had to stay where she was for awhile longer.

So on Monday we will start on our new adventures as a family and see what having a little girl around the house will be like. Wish us luck.

Bug's 1st week of school

2009-09-09T17:00:00.001-07:00

This has been Bug's 1st week of school. We are doing things differently this year and so far so good. We are using a whole new curriculum. We have been using K12's curriculum the last 2 years, but have moved on to a more eclectic, mix and match for this year. So far I like the looks of it and the math seems like it will be good for Bug. We are using horizons math and the pages are brightly colored and easy to follow.

Another change we have made is I am trying to be more organized and I am putting his work into folders each day. He has 7 folders that way he can go down each day see what is in his folder and know up front how much work he needs to get done. then he can go through and pick out what he wants to do 1st. That way when his folder is empty he knows that he is done for the day. We school 7 days a week, but we usually do the more entertaining things on the weekends, like create a book or do his book reports, plus history which is his favorite subject. It will be interesting to see how things go.

Family Food day

2009-09-03T20:46:00.000-07:00

This afternoon we all headed down as a family to Pig Out in a the Park downtown. Lots of good food hard to make a choice. We started out with some corn on the cob, and pink lemonade, then I had fish tacos, and Bug had a cheese quesadilla and Don had a really good Philly cheese steak sandwich. Then I had a frozen turtle dipped cheesecake and Don had a chocolate dipped banana and Bug had a chocolate dipped strawberry. I guess we are all related after all, chocolate must run in the genes. Afterwards we walked around for a bit and Bug rode the carousel a couple times , then we hopped on the bus and headed back home. It was nice to get out and spend time as a family.

1st day at my new location

2009-09-01T20:34:00.000-07:00

I had my 1st time at my new location for work today. Don was home this morning so I spent time setting everything up this morning, then came back and had my 1st client this evening. The people seem really nice and I love being so close to home.

The new room is nice it is painted a pretty color, the floor is a nice color and it has a little alcove at one end with a cabinet and a counter top with lots of space underneath. I'm hoping to put some sort of covering over the windows to make them more opaque and need to organise underneath the counter top. I still need to get some sort of rug for the floor and something to block noise from under the door. But the decor is up and the table is ready and the clients are on the books.

End of the summer picnic

2009-08-31T20:04:00.000-07:00

Today we had a fun end of the summer BBQ at our house for our MOMS club playgroup. I had bought "How to Host a kids Party" Safari addition, last fall for Bug's birthday this year and then he decided not to use it. So we used it for our end of the summer party, it was fun. It comes with a tape that tells a story about an animal preserve and a missing lion cub, then it gives you a place to go look for a clue and a skill to practice (game). When the kids run off to the suggested place they found a paw print then came back to listen to the next part of the tape after leading a merry chase around the house they found the missing cub in the bathtub. Then the kids went out to play and I started up the grill and cooked up burgers for everybody and we had a nice BBQ.

After everybody headed out we headed to my old work and picked up all of my stuff and dropped it off at my new location. I am definitely not going to miss commuting out to the valley. My new location is 3-4 minutes from my home. I'm excited to get started there.

Happy 7th Birthday Bug

2009-08-30T07:50:00.000-07:00

Bug and his fellow pirates "Arrggg Matey"

We have been celebrating Bug's birthday week, since Mon. I love birthdays and never feel like a single day is enough so we draw the festivities out for a week, with little things. So on Mon Bug and I went out and lunch at Red Robin and got his free kids meal and they sang him happy birthday, then Tue we met Don at the Spaghetti factory for dinner and Bug's free birthday meal and they sang him happy birthday, on Wed I had to work so Bug hung out with daddy all day. Then on Thur I took the day off and we went to Silverwood Theme park for the day. Also Bug got his big birthday gift that day, a new Netbook. He has been using Don's old laptop for the last year and has been asking for something newer, that worked a little quicker. On Friday, his actual birthday I had to work again, so he went and spent the day running around with Uncle Martin and then had his 1st football practice in the evening. It was so cute to see him running around out there. It is flag football and they were all having a heck of a time figuring out how to grab each others flags. After that we met up with Cheryl so that E & G could spend the night and come to the party with us on Sat.

Bug and his cake. Nice 'stache huh?

So on Saturday we had his birthday party at the local Children's Museum, it was a pirate theme as you can see from the pictures. Everything went well except, that I had it in my head that the party started at 2, so I planned ahead and had everything ready so we could head out the door at 1:00, especially since I was bringing 5 of the boys with me. So we get all loaded up and head out on time and everything and I get a call from my friend Meegan asking me if I had gotten a new baby and I'm all confused saying "no, why?" And she says "well we were all just wondering why your not here" and I said "the party doesn't start till 2" and she tells me "all of the invitations say 1." Oh well so much for best laid plans. So I had to round up all the kids once I got there, but other than that the party went great. We ended up with 15 kids total, 12 boys and 3 girls. After the party we dropped off all the boys that we had, his friend S from church back to his house, E & G and his other friend R back to Mike and R's mom Rachelle.

Then I went and dropped him and mom off at home and ran over and picked up some thank you cards. When I got home Bug opened one of his presents. I decided this year that we would open them at home, that way he can write his thank you cards right after he opens it. We usually struggle with getting him to write his cards, so this way he has to write the card before he is allowed to open the next gift. That way it is self motivating. He only opened two presents last night, but he got the card written the quickest I have ever seen him. After that we watched Mary Poppins for movie night. Bug hadn't seen it before i think it is now his new favorite movie.

Happy 1st Birthday Lady Bug

2009-08-22T19:43:00.000-07:00

My friend Brenda's little girl celebrated her 1st birthday today. We ended up running a little late, because we had to run and pick up my car from the shop today (it is finally fixed from my little accident last month, when Don was out of town.) They had it at a local park between her house and mine. It was a nice party, Brenda had one of her church friends and her 3 girls and her mother and sister came up from California for the weekend and then Bug and I. The kids just ran around the playground and Lady bug showed what a monkey she is trying to climb up all the slides. Then they brought out the cake ( a lady bug shaped one for her) and she did a pretty good job of tearing into it. She was a little hesitant at 1st but she did good once she started going.

Almost time for school.

2009-08-20T19:33:00.000-07:00

I know it is almost time for school now that we had our "getting ready for school" homeschool get together. My church has quite a few homeschoolers, so last year we started getting together as a group once a month. It's a nice opportunity to talk things over, get encouragement and discuss different topics. We have had topics about different types of curriculum, local field trips, how people schedule their days and various other things last year.

Today was an especially large group and we had a local gal that sells various homeschool curriculum and games come out and show us some different options. Also it was a chance to see how many of us there are and get to know each other a little better. Also to give those who are thinking about homeschooling in the future a chance to see what it's all about.

There were some very interesting games there, but I am trying to not but anything else until we have gotten started with our year and tried out the new curriculum that I bought for this year. Now I can't wait until Sept 1st, that will be our official 1st day of school.

Movie, Playdate & the Dentist (part 2)

2009-08-18T19:23:00.000-07:00

This morning we went and picked up one of Bugs friends Ev and went to the last summer of the movie program and saw Imagine That. Bug and I had already seen it at the drive-in back in June, but it was cute enough we decided to go see it again.

After the movie we went to drop Ev off and ended up staying there and playing for an hour or so. It was nice to have a chance to visit with Kelli (Ev's mom) since I hadn't seen her much this summer, since she was at our house for 4th of July. The kids had fun playing whatever downstairs while we visited.

Then I had to take Bug over to his friends L & L's house to play, so that I could go to my dentist appt and get my teeth cleaned. They used some ultrasonic cleaner, which did a good job, but made a horrible sound. I plugged my ears the whole time, but that only works so well , when the sound is coming from inside your head.

Playdate & Dentist

2009-08-17T19:11:00.000-07:00

Today we had a fun playdate for Adventure Kids, our school age playgroup for my MOMS club. We got together at our friend Angie's house and she taught the kids to make Pizza Pinwheels and fluffy peanut butter dip. The pin wheels must have been good, the kids gobbled them up quickly and the peanut butter dip was fabulous. Bug really enjoyed making it and we had all sorts of things to dip in it. Bug liked the strawberries best and I liked the apples, but there was also oreos, graham crackers and a couple other things. Afterwards the kids all ran around Angie's big back yard and played some sort of boy/fighting game, while the moms got to chat.

Afterward Bug and I headed to a dentist appt for me at a new dentist. My friend Brenda told me about this dentist awhile ago and I am just finally getting around to getting in. The whole office is very nice. Everybody had to stop in and way Hi or introduce themselves, the dentist sat and talked to me for quite awhile about how my teeth are and what I wanted done about them. They seem to know what they are doing I guess I will find out tomorrow when I come back in for my teeth cleaning.

Girls Weekend Away

2009-08-16T18:54:00.000-07:00

We had our girls weekend away, for my work this weekend. One of the gals from my work has a lake place over in Idaho and plans a weekend away for everybody from the salon. Of course not everybody goes (there are about 20 of us at the salon) but i think we ended up with 11 of us total.

I slowly worked my way that direction on Friday and ended up getting there around 5 or so. It was a rainy evening so half the gals were inside and the other half were huddled on the covered porch. Everybody was drinking and talking and having a good time. It cleared up some in the evening and so we even had a fire and took a moonlight dip.

On Sat, Stephanie wanted to go for a run, so Kathy and I decided that we would walk, we ended up walking 6 miles and Steph went 7. She caught back up to us around 1 1/2 miles from the trailer and walked the rest of the way with us. It was a beautiful walk, nice woods on either side, although there are some pretty trashy houses around there, but what else would you expect in Idaho. We spent the rest of the day drinking, eating, talking, laughing, reading and playing games and of course more eating.

Sun morning we all headed out for a hike around the mill pond section of the lake. Kathy is a very fast walker, so we ended up doing it in two groups, Kathy, Steph and I in the lead and everyone else in the rear. It was a nice path, two track in some places and single track in others. It was probably about 2 miles all together. After that we came back and had breakfast and started getting things ready to go. We all headed back home just before noon.

It was a fun weekend, but it was also nice to get back home to my family.

Ice Cream Anyone?

2009-08-14T07:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went on a really fun outing with our MOMS club to take a tour of Cold Stone Creamery. We got there a little late, because we stopped in at a K12 get together and had a drink (it was at a coffee house). I got a chance to ask if they were changing over to the new math this year. Which they aren't so that made me feel better about my decision to drop K12 this year and go a different direction with our homeschooling.

Anyways at Cold Stone, they broke the group up in to 2 tours and they then took them through the back and showed them how to make the ice cream, then showed the their super sized fridges and freezers and how to make waffle cones and cups , then let them have taste of the ice cream they saw being made (see pic.) After the tour was over the kids got to order their own scoop, with whatever they wanted. There servings are always so huge, even though Bug got the smallest size he still tossed half of it away. But it was delicious while he ate it.

Later in the afternoon, he had a couple of friends over for a play date, they ended up playing in his room which really surprised me since, he has been gaga over the dirt pile in the back yard ever since Don created it. It was a nice relaxed day, i didn't even have to work, so just spent the day with my boy.

We are oficially licensed Foster Parents

2009-08-13T09:17:00.000-07:00

I got the call the other day and we are officially licensed foster parents. So now we are just waiting for the call. We have decided to start out by taking a child that we think will go back, instead of looking for one that should be adoptable. That should take the pressure off us to some degree, to find just "the right" child and get us back into helping mode. Then if it works out that the child becomes adoptable, we will be at a better place to make that decision.

The room is ready now where are the calls?

Movie and a Playdate

2009-08-12T21:32:00.000-07:00

Today we went to the kid's movie special at one of our local theaters and saw Night at the Museum 2, with one of Bug's little friends. It was a rainy day around here so it was very busy there and we saw loads of people we new. People from Moms club, ex member's of MOMS club and people from church. The movie was good, we had seen it before at the beginning of summer at the drive-ins, but it was the 2nd feature so it was after midnight when it started. So it was nice to see it while I was more awake.

After the movie we brought Bug's friend E home with us and they played for most of the afternoon. We are putting up a fence in our backyard and re-doing the yard, so there is a huge pile of sand back there so they played some game using that and ended up filthy. They had a good time though and that's what counts.

It was weird to be home all day and have Don there, I am on vacation this week, (we were supposed to go camping with some friends of ours but it didn't work out). So usually if I am home Don is at work and vice versa, we rarely get a day home together. It was nice just to hang out together.

I'm getting excited for my girls weekend away this weekend, (with everybody from work). Hopefully though the weather will get nicer, it is pretty rainy and overcast, which is not going to make for much fun at the lake. But if there isn't sun then there's always alcohol to make the day cheery.

A play day.

2009-08-10T20:29:00.000-07:00

We had a fun day of play, today. We started out this morning at our Adventure Kids play date (the school age playgroup for MOMS club). It was a neat Amazing Race theme, with different pit stops along the way. The kids were broken down into teams of 3 and had to do a scavenger hunt, put a puzzle together, blind taste testing, dress a member up in a silly outfit and a bunch of other things. The kids had a blast and Bug's team came in 2nd so he was thrilled.

After that we went to his friend R's house for a play date. We haven't gotten a chance to see them since school got out so it was nice for them to run around together. Unfortunately he is going to be at school on Mon and Bug will be on Wed so they won't be in the same class this year. But we are going to try to sign them both up for Friday half day class, so then they will have time together.

In the evening we went and picked up my uncle Martin and headed over for Bug's foot ball assessment. He is going to play flag football with Upwards this fall and to make the teams even, they do an assessment on all the kids to make sure the teams are evenly matched and also that the player that your up against is evenly matched with you. Bug is very excited about football, his older cousin Jay has been playing football since he was Bug's age and Bug really looks up to him. My uncle came along with us to see where the church is so that he can take him if we can't, he loves to do Bug's different sporting things with him.

Lunch with daddy and time at the children's museum

2009-08-09T09:25:00.000-07:00

After church today we went and did a little grocery shopping and then headed over to have lunch with Don. He has about an hour layover on Sunday's, so we try to meet up with him and have lunch and visit. Bug loves to swing on the bus like it's a jungle gym.

After that we headed downtown to the Children's Museum to get Bug's party booked and make sure of all the details. Bug got to stay and play for 30-45 min. Then we headed home to make dinner and get ready for Movie Night.

We watched the Cat from Outer Space, Don was thrilled apparently he remembers watching that with his grandpa when he was little. I don't remember having seen it before but it was definitely cute. I love those old 80's Disney movies, we have been collecting them lately.
We have: Flight of the Navigator, Candleshoe, Escape to Witch Mountain, Return from Witch Mountain and this one. If anyone can think of any other great 80's Disney movies please let me know and we will check them out.

Kids Day

2009-08-08T20:06:00.000-07:00

Bug in the cop car, we told him it's always better to be in the front then the back.

Today we spent the day downtown at Kid's Day. It is a fun and free event that they hold every summer downtown. It is essentially lots of booths, some having to do with kids, some not. But every booth has to have a free activity for the kids. Bug got to make a bunch of different art projects, got a ton a free give aways, including toothbrushes, Frisbees, a new shirt, etc. It was a lot of fun. My friend Brenda was supposed to come with us, but she had had a bad day and decided to just rest at home. We also found a place to have Bug's B-day party, we were going to have a Harry Potter party here at the house, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that it was going to be a lot of work. So all day I kept throwing ideas of other party places at Bug and he was like ya ya, but I want my party. So towards the end of the day I mentioned that the local Children's Museum has parties and Bingo he was sold. So we ran over there after we left Kid's Day and got the details. He's excited about the fun place and I'm excited about how little work it will be for me. Yeah a win win situation.

Bug drumming out at one of the booths, of course after this he wanted to take drum lessons. I told him you had to be ten, that should buy my ears a couple of years.

VBS Week

2009-08-06T21:40:00.000-07:00

Bug and his buddies at today's performance

This week was our church's VBS, Bug has been having the best time. It has an Australian theme and he has made, boomerangs, and Digeradoos and lots of other fun thing. He has also learned a bunch about Peter, his life and ministry. Today they had their family fun day and we got to watch the kids sing the songs they have been learning and then followed that with a great BBQ. After that Bug played out in the field with his friends having a water fight. He came home soaking wet, which is a fairly new thing for him. He used to never get wet at things like that prefering to stay out of the way. It's funny the changes they make as they grow.

.

Bug belting out one of the songs he learned.

The New Pool

2009-08-02T07:44:00.000-07:00

Bug enjoying a drink after warming up

Yesterday we went and tried out our new local pool. It was a lot of fun but very crowded. It has a nice play area for the little kids, with fountains and slides and stuff. It also has a diving board and bigger slides but we didn't get to try out any of those since the lines were so long.

Here is Bug warming up after swimming in his cocoon.

My Bug coming out of his cocoon.

We had a good time, it says no outside food or drink when you come in, but they don't have anything to eat there (unless you count a couple candy bars behind the cashiers). So we ended up leaving to have lunch and then coming back. But before we left we noticed the rule wasn't enforced, since on one side of us were people eating McD's and on the other side was a girl eating a family sized bag of chips. So we did bring some snacks and drinks with us when we came back. It was too crowded to actually be able to swim around, but it was still very refreshing, since it was a very hot day, (I think around 100 or so). Nice pool we'll have to check it out on a week day and see if its less crowded.

Our Break in excitement.

2009-08-01T21:07:00.000-07:00

Last night we had a break in of sorts around here. The boys stayed here last night before heading home this morning.

So around 1:15 am my husband heard knocking at the door and the door bell ring. He figured maybe the boys went for a middle of the night burger run and locked themselves out, so he got up to answer the door. Instead of the boys standing there, it was a girl asking for Alyssa, (the teenager who used to live next door). My husband explained that she didn't live around here anymore and told the girl to go home.

He comes back to bed but he's laying there and thinks he hears something so he gets up to investigate, but doesn't see anything so he lays back down. Well this happens 2-3 more times and on the 4th time he rushes back into our room to get his cell phone and says "she's in the car". Well this gets my attention so I get up to find out what's going on.

I come into the kitchen and he's on the phone with 911 and I look out the window but I don't see anything, so I am listening to him and the next thing I know, the dome light in my car flicks on and then off again. Now I can see her, she is sitting in my car rifling through all of my stuff. So about the time that Don gets off the phone with 911 she hops out and I tell him there is no way you are going to let her just walk away with whatever she grabbed from my car.

So he goes out to lightly confront her and she has the owners manual to my car and a coupon in her hand. He gets those from her and she starts asking him for a ride down town in various ways. He of course tells her no, but she is so drunk or high that she just keeps on asking. So he tells her to leave and I run over to the car and check through it real quick, lock it up and check my truck and lock it up. I tell Don she didn't get into the truck. So I head in to take my stuff from the truck inside and he follows her around the front of our house and watches her walk straight into the vacant house next door (where Alyssa used to live). So he calls 911 again to tell them she's in the house next door.

About that time the cops show up so I come back out to see what is up and they can't find her. So Don tells me to check the backyard. I notice that the next door's garage is wide open with all the lights on so I look in there for her, but can't find her, so I go back to my yard. Don asks if I have seen her and when I tell him No he heads back up front to talk to the cops. While I am standing there I look over to our next, next door neighbors house and see someone walking along there fence.

So I head towards the alley way to see if it's her and there she is, so I yell over to her "hey, I found someone to give you a ride downtown". So she comes back over to where I am thanking me and trying to get in my car again, so I get Don's attention and tell her to follow him, he starts leading her out to where the cop cars are and she asks him "Hey, is that your cop car", he tells her "no, I'll show you who it belongs to" and walks her right over to the cops.

About this time her brother and father show up (they saw the cop cars and thought that they should stop, in case it was her). The cops start asking her questions and she proceeds to deny everything, she wasn't in my car, she wasn't in the neighbors house, etc. They ended up calling the lady who owns the house next door and go through the house to find, that the girl must have spent some time in the house. All the lights were on, she lit a candle downstairs, doors were opened and things had been gone through. After all was said and done both Don and the lady declined to press charges and the girl got to go home with her father (not my choice).

After we made breakfast the this morning and told the boys about them sleeping through our break in, I hopped in my truck to run some errands and realized that she had gone through my truck, but luckily she hadn't taken anything. As I was driving away, I saw my next, next door neighbors and remembered that I had seen her over by their fence so I stopped to tell her what had happened. She said she had wondered, apparently her mom had spent the night and forgot to lock the doors of her Geo and when she got up this morning, she found a plastic drawer, with screws, and handles and other odds and ends sitting on her driver side seat, so apparently the girl had gotten in her vehicle also.

In the end we found out the girl was just 15, sad state of affairs with some of our youth today.

A week with the boys

2009-07-31T20:58:00.000-07:00

My nephew Jay has decided to attend WSU and came over this week for the freshman orientation. He had a coupld of friends tag along with him for a road trip and possibly to go to Silverwood. At the last minute they decided a hotel was too much so we had 2 of his friends, stay here Wed night, 3 stay on Thur night and all 4 of them are here tonight.

It has been a neat experience having them here as it looks like Bug is going to turn into a teenage boy some day, it's been very educational. In all reality though I feel like my nephew sold the other boys a bill of goods. While he is off enjoying Freshman orientation, the other boys have spent all of there time running up and down the road to where Jay is (an hour and a half away). 1st on Wed driving him there and then coming here to spend the night, then on Thur, they drove back down there to pick up the 3rd friend, who flew into that airport instead of this one, then came back to spend the night and then finally today heading back down there to pick Jay up, now the plan is to get up in the morning and head back home.

Like I said not much fun for the other boys (in my opinion). When I mentioned this to my hubby, he said, "No teen boys love to drive and take useless road trips". Apparently he took many similar puposeless trips when he was in his late teens early twenties and always had a blast.

Boys such strange creatures.

Sleep Overs & Playdates

2009-07-27T20:49:00.000-07:00

Bug was excited to have his friends E & G over for a sleep over last night. The boys got dropped off around mid afternoon and got to play for awhile before movie night. We watched the original Ice Age movie, which I had never seen and decided wasn't too bad. The boys thought it was hilarious. Between the movie, the popcorn and the ice cream they had a great time and actually got to bed at a reasonable hour.

We then got up this morning and went to an Adventure kids playdate at the park. We had a water balloon fight and played around the park. It had a really good turn out and Bug had a great time. E & G got left out a little bit but still seemed to have a good time.

They spent the rest of the afternoon, playing outside and playing on the Wii, until a family friend came and picked up the boys. Then Bug and I ran out and did a couple errands including getting my TB test done, basically the last thing on our list of things to get done to get our Foster Licence.

The New Room......Pink Personified

2009-07-23T21:49:00.000-07:00

Well our new little girl's room is officially finished, it is definitely pink. But I think it is cute and I hope that whatever little girl(s) we have in our house enjoy it as much as I enjoyed creating it.

As you can see the walls are all pink and the castle bed I found turned out perfect. I went with the princess theme and have on one wall the saying "Once upon a time, there was ..... a Princess" In a darker pink than the walls and surrounded by pink stars.

Then on three of the walls, I did flowers with butterflies, bees, ladybugs and the such. Along the baseboard like a fairy garden. Then above the bed it says "DREAM ... Fly with the Angels ... Dance with the Stars". Also in dark Pink with pink stars. Very cute and VERY girlie.

Happy Birthday to me.

2009-07-21T00:50:00.000-07:00

Well today (technically yesterday) was my 35th birthday. I can't believe I'm 35, that is officially old to me. I ended up having a pretty nice day. Though going into it I was feeling pretty bummed. Originally my mom was supposed to take me out for a girls day of shopping and lunch with my cousin Jamie, but she found out she had to work. Then Don was supposed to take me out to dinner, but he had to go to the fire dept. So I started out the day with nothing to do.

So Bug and I went to Adventure Kids (the school age playgroup) for our MOMS club, it was nice to hang out and visit with friends, around noon we headed over to a local restaurant that gives you a free steak dinner on your birthday and Don met us there. The lunch was good and Don gave me my birthday present, a new ipod Nano. I have been really wanting an ipod so was very excited to get this. I can't wait to learn how to download music into it.

After lunch Don headed back to work and we went to my friend Brenda's to visit for awhile, she gave me a nice gift. It is one of those lights that look like a candle but have a flickering led light in them. It should match really well with the new color that I am (actually her husband Bryan is) painting my massage room at work. Then Bug and I went to Maggie Moos for some birthday ice cream.

After we got home I worked on the new bedroom until dinner and then Bug took me out to Mustard Seed for dinner. Don had given him the money to take me out. So at the end of the meal Bug got the check, I told him about tips and we figured out how much he needed to pay and how to do it and he took care of it. I'm sure the waited thought I was crazy, but Bug did a good job and you could tell he was proud of himself for being the man.

So as you can see I ended up having a very nice day. One of the nicest things about today,was that my facebook goes straight to my cell phone and so throughout the day I got nice birthday wishes from many of my friends. Definitely made the day go that much better.

Bug update

2009-07-20T09:27:00.000-07:00

Bug woke up this morning still in pain and wanting to put the cervical collar back on. I told him if he had the collar on then he would have to spend the day in bed. He said OK I'll lay in your room and watch TV. I said "Oh no, there will be no TV." So he went back to his room and was out with in 5 minutes dressed and without the collar, ready to go for the day. You can tell that he is really stiff, but he seems OK overall, we are supposed to give him ibuprofen every 6 hours for the next 2 days to keep down the inflamation.

Bug at the Hospital

2009-07-19T20:42:00.000-07:00

Bug getting into his room having his head taped down so he can't move.

Today instead of enjoying a friend's birthday party and relaxing in the afternoon and going out for an early birthday dinner. Bug and I spent the afternoon at the local Children's Hospital.

Bug was jumping in a bounce house at his friend's party and apparently decided to do a somersault and missed and hurt his neck. Bug being who he is (our own little drama king,) got out of the house just fine, walked over to where I was sitting climbed into my lap and then started screaming his head off.

We ended up sitting at the party for 45 minutes with me trying to decided if he was actually hurt enough to justify taking him somewhere to be looked at, or if I should just take him home. I tried call Blue but no luck, so I called the urgent care to get their opinion and they said I should take him in, but not to them. That I should take him to the hospital so they could run some tests.

At this point Bug is still in my lap with me holding his head in one place, he is determined that I not move him and I keep thinking to my self I am not about to call an ambulance over this. (Before you think oh, what a horrible mom, please remember that Bug is a huge drama king. If he gets sick he will keep telling me "I don't think I'm going to make it." I finally had to explain to him that saying that was like saying he was going to die. Also he walked over to me from the bounce house in the 1st place, not crying at all.)

Bug strapped down watching TV waiting to get a CT scan and Xrays.

Finally I decide to try some Tylenol, but he is still screaming his head off intermittently and it's been at least 45 minutes so I tell him I am taking him to the hospital. He is freaking out yelling "you can't move me". So I get his friend's parents to help me, I carried him and they opened doors and moved stuff out of the way in our truck. I ended up just laying him down on the seat, no belt or anything and driving him to the hospital.

By the time I get there I can tell that the Tylenol has started to kick in but that he is still in pain and their is no way he is going to let me pick him up and carry him into the hospital and then wait around like that in the waiting room. So I went in and told them what happened and they sent two nurses out to put a cervical collar and bring him in. When they try to move him he starts screaming bloody murder. On the way to the hospital he had asked me how they were going to get him inside and asked if they had some sort of board that they could just slide under him to carry him inside. Well he got his wish they ended up bringing out a backboard and putting him on a stretcher to take him inside. Of course once they got him inside and turned on the Harry Potter movie for him any moans of pain became very intermittent. He ended up getting a CT scan of his neck and Xrays of his back, both of which turned out fine.

We could have gone home an hour earlier, but after they checked his scans and saw that everything looked fine,they took the collar off and asked him to move his neck and he told them it hurt too much to move. So they had to put the collar back on, give his some ibuprofen and then take another set of Xrays from a different position to be double sure. Of course they also came back fine and we explained to Bug (Don had arrived by this time), that if he didn't turn his head, even though it might hurt that he was going to have to stay the night at the hospital without mom and dad or watching any more TV. Then he decided he could do it after all. So when the Dr came in the next time Bug turned his head and they let us go home. We ended up putting Bug straight to bed out of sheer frustration. the funny thing is they even gave him some Tylenol with codeine before he left the hospital and it didn't do a thing for him, he still stayed up until after 9:30 and continued to complain of pain. We'll see how he is in the morning.

A Wiggle night.

2009-07-18T23:31:00.000-07:00

Bug with The Wiggles in the background.

Tonight we got to go see The Wiggles. My friend Meegan took us, she got free tickets through one of her Foster family connections and invited us to go. I was really excited to go. Bug is getting older and will soon be past the age of wanting to see them and we haven't been since he was about 20 months old. He didn't even know who The Wiggles were the last time we went, having never seen the show. We all had a great time, and it was so much fun to see him shouting and dancing along.

The Wiggles arriving in the 'Big Red Car'.

The Cast up on stage.

Bug shouting "Wake up Jeff!"

I love my Hubby

2009-07-16T22:43:00.000-07:00

The office is now officially downstairs. Yeah Don! As I wrote last week I moved everything out of the office except Don's desk and computers. So last night Don disassembled the desk and moved it downstairs and today he got all the computer stuff out. Now I just need to get in and get the room painted and assemble the new bed and Viola a little girls bedroom. I'll take a pic and post it after I get it all done.

BTW we didn't end up getting the camper I found last week after all. We went out and looked at it on Sunday, but Don decided it was more work than he wanted to take on. So we passed on it. We did sell our camper this week though. So we either need to find something new, or we'll be tenting it the rest of the summer. We have a trip planned in 4 weeks, so we will see what happens.

My protector's

2009-07-11T17:23:00.000-07:00

See I told you I need someone watching over me, the neighbors even think so. I have been getting things done around the house today and running in and out taking stuff out to the garage or car. Anyways I am downstairs putting stuff away and I hear a hello coming from upstairs and I figure it's Kent, (he has a key and tends to come in and yell for us). So I come upstairs to find a local cop standing in my kitchen. Apparently a neighbor or someone called them concerned because I had left the doors open on my car and to the garage. While I'm visiting with the cop another neighbor stopped by to make sure everything was OK, because a woman had stopped by a couple of times looking at a desk I have out front. I guess it's just me but if you leave something out front with no price or anything on it, I assume it's free. Anyways after the cop and neighbor left I went and shut all the door and put a sign on the desk that says FREE, hopefully that clears up any confusion. I can't wait till my hubby gets back home.

I miss my family

2009-07-11T13:34:00.000-07:00

OK it's been long enough I am starting to really miss my family. Also apparently I need someone to watch over me, after all the other things that have gone wrong this week, yesterday I fell down the stairs and hurt my foot. At first I though I just scraped it up good, but after working on it all day it had swelled up pretty good. So I wrapped it up and left my shoe off to go to Bunco last night. Every time I talk to Don, he has horrible reception so I can barely hear him and he never has Bug around his so I haven't talked to Bug since Wed morning :(

Bunco was fun last night, though there was definitely more gabbing than playing. We only ended up getting through 3 rounds (instead of 4), before it got to dark to play. I didn't win anything but it was still a lot of fun. Also we had a best food competition last night, so the food was even better than usual.

Today I have been working on finishing up things around the house, getting our room reorganized and getting the last few things out of the office. Speaking of that I better get off the computer and get back to work.

I found them.

2009-07-09T23:58:00.000-07:00

I found our new foster daughter's bed. I have had an idea in my head of the kind of bed that I wanted, but just hadn't found it yet at the price I was looking for. I wanted a bed that you would walk into her room and go "yep, this is definitely a girls room". So I finally found the ultimate little girls bed. As you can see from the pictures, it is a castle with pink side and it even has a little built in table for tea parties. I even got pink Disney princess bedding to go with it with valances for the window and a Little Mermaid storybook pillow. I can't wait to get the room finished and wee how it looks in there.

Also I think I found our new camper today. It is 11 ft long and should fix all the problems that we have with our current camper. 1st it has a queen size bed that goes the long way so I won't have to step on Don in the middle of the night to go pee. It has a full bathroom with sink and shower, a refrigerator with separate freezer and a built in ice chest off to the side for your drinks. The bunk has a little bit more head room, (the one in our current camper Bug barely fits in). It also has an automatic lift/leveling system. So that you can easily get it on and off the truck and also leave it at the campsite if we want to hop in the truck and go do something. I left a deposit on it and will take Don to go see it and make a final decision after he gets back on Sun.

Unfortunately on the way to go see the camper my car started to smoke and make a funny smell, I stopped and took a look at it, but couldn't find anything obviously wrong with it.
Then after I got back I was going around these S curves that have a center divider and miss judged the corner and hit the divider and took out both the driver side tires. I ended up calling Don's friend Kent to come and help me. Luckily Don keeps our snow tires on separate wheels, so Kent just went to the house and picked up two of my snow tires then came and changed them for me. It's been a long night so I'm off to bed.

Home visit

2009-07-08T22:07:00.000-07:00

Today we had our 2nd home visit with our foster care licensor (Yong). I say we but it was actually just me since Bug and Don left for camping early this morning. I thought about rescheduling the appointment, but the last time I talked to Yong she said we needed to have everything done by the 1st of Aug.

So today we got through a good portion of my personal history interview and she inspected the house and checked off most things. We have a few odds and ends things left, like the bed (which I still haven't found yet). Locks on the cupboards under the sinks, outlet covers, showing her our 1st aid kit, fire extinguishers and flashlight. Then I still need to schedule our fingerprinting and get out TB tests done.

I have given up on Don ever getting the office done in time. So after Yong left I went and cleared out the office. When Don gets back from his trip, he will come home to an empty office with only and empty desk with the computer sitting on it. Everything else will be downstairs where the new office is going. I got most everything done in there, before I had to head off to work. Our room is a huge mess though with all the stuff from the office that doesn't go in there anymore and doesn't really need to go downstairs either. It's a good thing Don is gone because his half the bed is so covered in stuff that he wouldn't be able to sleep there any ways.

The only downside of the day is that I found out my phone is broken, so I will have to order a new one.

Getting things done.

2009-07-07T22:01:00.000-07:00

Don and Bug are headed out for a camping trip with Mike and his boys and some of Mike's other guy friends and their boys to the Lake. So we have spent the last 2 days getting all his math done for the week. Getting the laundry done and his stuff packed. Getting the camper all ready and all the other little things that need to be done so they can go. We also went and saw Surf's Up at the theater on Mon and went to a pool party at a friend from MOMS club on Tue.

It's a good thing I've been so busy so that I don't have time to think about the fact that they will be gone for 5 days wwaaaaaa!

On a good note I think I found a buyer for the camper after they get back. Now hopefully I can find something to replace it with.

Fun Forth of July

2009-07-05T12:49:00.000-07:00

We had a nice forth of July around here. I got up extra early to get the yard picked up and looking it's best. Don went fishing with his buddy and mom helped get the food ready after she got up around 11.

We had a nice BBQ with about 18 people. It was supposed to start around 1:00 but I had told people we would eat around 4 so most people didn't come until around 3:30 but that worked out good, it gave me a chance to get more things done around here. And Brenda came around 1:30 with her 2 little ones So my Bug got to play with her son and she and I got to visit.

The BBQ went smoothly, usually I feel like I run around like a chicken with it's head cut off at most of my parties and I was very relaxed and just got to sit around and visit with friends. Everybody hung out till 5:30-6 and we ended up keeping Brenda's son a little while extra, so she could take her daughter home and put her to bed and Bug would still have someone to play with.

After we took S home, Don started a fire in the fire pit and we roasted marshmallows and had s'mores, then Bug and I took our sleeping stuff out to his playhouse and we camped out there for the night. It was too warm when we first laid down and we could here fireworks, so it took us a while to fall asleep. But is was fun anyway just to do something new with him.

Bye-bye K

2009-07-03T19:49:00.000-07:00

My niece K headed back home today. I will miss having her around it was a great visit. We didn't do to much this week. Bug had swimming lessons all this week in the afternoons, so that had priority over other activities.

On Tue we had our MOMS club end of the year picnic. at a park right by my house. This picnic was wonderful, very well organised, lots of food, nice thank you gifts for the coordinator and the retiring president gave us all really cute pens with the MOMS club logo on it. K had a good time eating and tanning, I got to visit with Brenda and the rest of my MOMS club friends and my Bug and her Bug got to run around and play together.

On Wed, Bug went to a play date for most of the day and then Don picked him up and took him to swim lessons. K stayed home by herself the whole day, just laying around in bed, playing on the computer and texting her friends. I didn't get off work until late and when I got home and asked Don about dinner, he said he had sent his friend Kent to pick up something for him and Bug. I asked him what about me and K and he said he figured we didn't want any. So I went downstairs and got K and her and I went out to Subway for dinner together. It was nice to sit and chat just the two of us.

On Thur I took K and Bug to the downtown park to ride on the rides and play miniature golf (something fun for K's last day), I had to head to work at 12;30 so Don met us down there and hung out with the kids. Then after the kids were done Don dropped K off at my work so she could get her eyebrows waxed and have her toenail fixed (she stubbed it and damaged her french pedicure). Also the shirts that we made at the play date on Mon didn't turn out well, so we had bought some stuff to try them again and K got to Tie-dye a new shirt for her and 1 each for Bug and her younger sister and brother, plus one extra. That kept her busy until I got done working.

Anissa got in around 9 that night, she brought John (K's dad) and his two kids A & J over with her. A had wanted to come with Anissa when she came over, just to check it out over here, so they decided to make a quick little trip of it for them both. Their (A & D's) mother died in May at the age of 34, obviously quite a shock for everyone, but especially for the kids. So it was nice for them to come over and check out new things, it helps keep their minds from dwelling too much on it.

So we all visited and looked at pictures together last night until I headed to bed, (they are all night owls). I got up this morning with Bug and got him busy with his morning chores including math and writing lessons and he was all done and ready to play by the time the kids got up. Bug and D played on the Wii together for a bit and then spent some time playing around outside. They got stuff loaded up and headed out around 11:30, Anissa had an appt with our cousin Jamie to have permanent makeup done. She had like mine and wanted to get it done, so I am exchanging with Jamie for Anissa, (I know I'm such a sweet sister). Actually I just wanted to see if she could withstand the pain. She must have done pretty well, they looked good when they stopped back by to pick up a few forgotten items and to say one last good bye.

On a final note I was very impressed with Bug's swimming lessons this week. he took private lessons with a lady that I have been hearing about since we moved over here is '04 and finally was able to get in this summer for 1 of the 2 weeks she is doing lessons. Bug swam the entire time, which is saying a lot because if you had asked me last week if he could swim I would have told you no. I loved it, the class is going the whole time, their is not a lot of downtime like there is with most lessons. The class that Bug was in was a little more advanced then he was but i think that was a good thing since he tends to go to the lowest common denominator and since that was him it motivated him to work a little harder.

K's vacation 2nd Mon.

2009-06-30T15:12:00.000-07:00

We are on the downhill stretch for K's vacation, I can tell she is getting more homesick as her texting is increasing more day by day. Today was a fun day we started out at Adventure kids, the new school age playgroup for out MOMS club. We had a really good turn out, there was 10+ moms with between 2-4 kids each. There was also another 14 yo there and her and K got along real well. Bug being his silly self spent all of his time playing with the teenagers instead of getting to know the other kids, but at least he had someone to play with.

After the play date we headed out to the pool just north of there. It is a nice pool with a kids area that has different things, that spray, pour and dump water. Then there is a shallow swimming area, a deep swimming area and an area with a diving board and a slide. Bug played for a little while then got out for the rest of the time but K and I swam for awhile, then after she passed the swim test we went out and did the slide and diving board.

We got lots of sun, too much for me as I ended up with a pretty good burn. After that we took Bug to his new swimming lessons. I am very impressed with them. Bug is behind in his class but most of the others were in lessons last week, so I'm not too worried about it. She really keeps them working. They spend 90% of their time swimming back and forth and the rest of it diving down for pennies. It was nice to see that Bug can actually swim when he wants to even if it is only 5 or 6 ft.

After Don got home k and I headed to my friend Jen's home for her open house for her new business selling tastefully simple. I had never been to one of the parties and everything was just fabulous, even K who is a notoriously picky eater found a ton of things she liked. There were so many samples it was hard to keep it straight which ones we liked the best. The desert she made were delicious too. I ended up buying a broad mix of things to try at home. Can't wait to get them home to try them.

Only a few more days with K, I will miss her when she's gone, it's been nice having her here.

K's vacation Thur-Sun

2009-06-28T22:37:00.000-07:00

We have been taking it easier the last few days. On Thur, Bug was gone in the morning so K slept in until noon or so, Don took Bug to math. So we just hung out around the house until 1ish then went and picked him up and ran a couple of errands until I had to head to work. The kids came with me and K got a nice french pedicure done while Bug watched a movie.

On Fri K got to sleep in again and Bug was looking for someone to play with but everyone we called had something going on. So we ended up heading over to one of our local parks, they are building a new pool there and I wanted to see when it was opening. Unfortunately it's not till next Mon after K has gone home. The kids played for a bit but the splash pad was closed, so we ended up heading out to Starbucks and getting some drinks and then going over to another park, so they could go in the splash pad. (This is when Bug's headache that I mentioned in flashback Friday started).

After that we went out to the local camp fire camp for their open house. It was a lot of fun (until Bug's headache got really bad). We had planned to swim but never got around to it. We had a hot dog dinner, then snow cones and got Bug's face painted. Then we played a couple games and made some s'mores. Checked out the shelter that Bug would be in this year if he goes to camp, checked out some stuff under the microscope and a few other things. We stayed for the drawing Bug's number was 864 and 863 and 865 both won, we were very bummed.

On Sat Bug woke up not feeling well and went back to bed. He woke up around 10:30 crying with another headache, so we took him into the urgent care clinic and they sent us to the local children's hospital, by the time we got there Bug was feeling pretty much all better and they sent us on our way after giving him some ibuprofen. We went and grabbed some lunch and then headed home. Grandma got off a little after we got home and I took K to go meet her at the mall and they did some shopping K got some really cute new clothes, all name brand. Which just goes to show that a lot changes between motherhood and grand motherhood. I always begged my mom for brand name clothes and she always said no, and here she is buying K Aeropostale and American Eagle. We finished off the evening with a BBQ dinner and my Don's new BBQ, Bug got him for a late father's day gift. We had hand made burgers that I got at the last dinner exchange I did and they were fabulous, I forgot how good homemade hamburgers were as opposed to the frozen ones.

On Sun we headed to Church in the morning and K helped me out in the 2 yo class and had so much fun that she stayed to help the next teachers while Bug and I headed to service. After church we ran to the grocery store to pick up a few things then went home and made sandwiches and had a picnic outside. Then K laid out and did some tanning while Bug and I laid in the hammock and did some reading of Harry Potter. After Don got home we had movie night and watched Bedtime Stories it was very cute, much better than I thought it would be. No headaches today for Bug so hopefully he has turned the corner for this virus the Dr. thought he was fighting.

Flashback Friday

2009-06-26T21:22:00.001-07:00

I always love seeing these on other peoples blogs so wanted to try it on here.

Don & I in June of '01 (don't we look young).

Bug just home from the hospital, (look at all that black hair).

Bug's 1st 4th of July, (just learning to crawl).

On a sad note poor Bug got another headache today, he tried to brave it out but by the time we got home he was crying and ended up getting sick. But after a nice warm bath and some ibuprofen he was feeling better and went to bed happy.

K's vacation Wed.

2009-06-25T10:04:00.000-07:00

I had to work most of the day on Wed so Don took K and Bug out to the lake with our friend Mike, his boys and their boat. I was sad to miss it it sounded like they all had a blast. K went wake boarding for the 1st time and was even able to get up for a few seconds a couple of times. They all went inner tubing behind the boat, Bug likes it nice and steady, but his buddy E is quite the daredevil, so K had a good time out riding with him. They spent most of the day out enjoying the sun, then came back and had some dinner before I picked her up (Bug spent the night out there). We came back and had some cake before bed and called it a night.

K's vacation Tue.

2009-06-25T09:30:00.000-07:00

Tuesday we took K, Bug and a family friend C to Silverwood for the day. It was a great thing we took C with us because, Bug ended up with a huge headache and spent most of the day laying down in the EMT's room taking a nap.

We started out over in the water park, but it was still a little chilly out, we tried one of the tube rides and Bug said it was to cold, then we tried out a bigger tube ride that we could all do together and Bug was still to cold, so I let the girls take off and go ride the slides together and Bug and I went to the wave pool to play while the waves were turned off, (he doesn't like to waves). When Bug got out he mentioned he had a headache and kept saying how cold he was. So when we met up with the girls, they went in the wave pool and Bug laid out in the sun to warm up, then we had lunch go dressed and headed over to the rides. Bug was still cold so I put my sweatshirt on him.

We decided to start out on the roller coaster, since Bug had decided to try it again this year and C had never been on one. Everything was fine until it started and then almost immediately Bug started crying that his head hurt, but after it starts your out of luck. By the time the ride was over he was practically hysterical crying how his head hurt. We went to check if they had any medicine we could give him but they only had adult strength.

So I sent the girls off to ride the rides and went to try and get back to the water park , so I could get my phone and call Don to see what he thought about giving him one of the adult strength pills. Unfortunately Bug is heavy so we kept having to stop, we ended up getting about half way back when we wouldn't let me move him again, luckily one of the staff boys came by and asked if he was OK and I asked him to go get the EMT. So that is how Bug spent most of the day in the EMT's room. He ended up taking a nap, drinking some Gatorade and eventually taking one adult pill of ibuprofen. By 3:30 he was up and starting to feel more chipper, I got him a stroller and pushed him around for the afternoon (and also K at times).

While I was dealing with all that the girls had a blast, they rode every roller coaster at the park, plus the Panic Plunge and the brand new roller coaster Aftershock, which goes up to 65.6 MPH and has 3 inversions. After we all met back up and Bug was feeling better K convinced me to go ride it with her. It is very fast, I kept my eyes shut the whole time, which definitely improved the ride.

The rest of the day went fine C and I climbed the rock wall, Bug got to go on some rides and we all went on the Paratrooper. We left a little after 7 and stopped and had pizza on the way home. We ended up getting home a little after 9, so it was a long day. Kind of stressful for me but the girls had a blast and Bug ended up having fun in the end.

WOW Weekend at WHO Convention.

2009-06-22T23:21:00.000-07:00

What a fabulous, insightful, inspiring & educational weekend I had. My mom, Bug and I headed over to Seattle Thur eve and got in around 11 and headed right to bed so that I could get up early and head to the Washington Homeschoolers Organization (WHO) convention at the Puyallup Fairgrounds. This 2 day convention is just what I have been needing, I listened to some great speakers.

I went to one lady twice, she did 2 different talks about Internet safety and kids. It wasn't the typical stuff you hear either about keeping computers in public places and different filters. She talked about passwords and safe online names, what info criminals can figure out by looking at your online photos and the info that agencies and other sites give out about you. It was very informative and I definitely won't look at things the same when I am on the computer. Another interesting speaker talked about traveling the world with kids, affordably.

The vendors were also wonderful with lots of selections and variety and pretty decent prices for the most part. I picked Bug up a new science kit for next year, some games to help with addition and subtraction, a new unit study lap book and some free curriculum from this financial place. Apparently they are non profit and have to use that money to give back to the community, so they have developed some curriculum that they distribute for free. I can't wait to get it and try it.

I'm also really excited about this lap book/unit study. I have been wanting to try something like this but just haven't taken the time to gather stuff up and get it all ready. This kit has all the stuff you need to do most of the projects and stuff.

We have been working on getting more organized with our schooling this summer and really working on Bug's writing and math, so hopefully by next fall we will be a well organized machine. I can hope at least.

K's vacation Sun & Mon.

2009-06-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

We brought my niece K home with us for a week and a half and got in late Sun. We didn't leave the Seattle area until late on Sun because we went and finally got our family pics done for my mom that we were supposed to do back in April. They turned out pretty cute, I'll have to scan a few in to show here. By the time we got all that done, got loaded up and headed out it was after 2, then we stopped in N. bend and did a little shopping, grabbed lunch and a big coffee and got on the road.

On Mon Bug had math class and also a photo shoot to have his head shots up dated. The math went great, he got through 7 lessons in one sitting. The photo shoot was interesting, we ended up late. 1st because I took the wrong exit, then the building was really hard to find. The photographer was very understanding she helped us pick out what he should wear and then took him outside to shoot, unfortunately it was very bright out so Bug kept squishing up his eyes. Also she was trying to get him to look serious and he is so used to smiling in pictures that he had a really hard time with that. She took 68 pics in all and we got it down to 4 pretty quickly but had a hard time deciding which 3 we were going to get (that is how many your allowed). We ended up picking 1 with a big grin, 1 that was serious and 1 in between. I can't wait to see how they turn out, we will get our copies on Friday. It wasn't too exciting of a 1st day of vacation for K but she was a great help and we were able to spend some time together while Bug was at math.

Happy Birthday E, (a little early)

2009-06-15T22:36:00.000-07:00

After a hectic morning we spent the afternoon going out to a movie and ice cream to celebrate one of Bug's best friends birthday.

It was a nice day, we started out the day with a bike ride. The Liberty Lake garage sale was on Saturday. (the whole town of Liberty lake has a garage sale). I found a new trail-a-bike for Bug to replace the one that was stolen this winter. It's not as nice as his old one, but it will do the trick.

Then we got back we watched my friend Meegan's 3 little ones, she has a 2, a 3 and a 4 year old kids. 2 boys and a girl, they are a ton of fun but also very active. I wonder how she makes it through the day without collapsing with exhaustion, they are hard to keep up with. Very polite but into everything and very, very busy, but so cute you could never get mad at any of them. It's quite an adventure to have them over and great practice for Bug to get used to having little ones around to prepare him for the foster girl we hope to get soon.

After that we quickly wrapped up E's gift and ran to the mall to meet them for the movie. We went and saw UP again, it was just as cute and just as sad the 2nd time through. Then we headed over to Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream and gave E his gift. A new game for his Leapster and a Magnetix Dinosaur.

Bug was going to go home with them to play for awhile but Don didn't want to pick him up after his officers meeting (fire dept.) so they met him at the district office and Bug went with Dad to his meeting. While I went and did a dinner exchange with Meegan and some of her friends and then headed to go meet up with some other friends and play Pokeno, I didn't end up with anything but it was an entertaining evening watching the gifts fly back and forth.

Bunco, 2 year olds and a 1st Recital

2009-06-14T22:15:00.000-07:00

Friday night was Bunco night, I love Bunco night, it's always so much fun to get together with all my girlfriends and eat, talk and play Bunco. I have finally mellowed out about the whole game. I have been the Bunco Nazi for too long, since I am so competitive. I don't even feel the constant compulsion to keep the score. Of course everyone is so used to me keeping the score that they hand me the score book anyways.

Then on Sunday I had my 1st day co-teaching the 2 year old Sunday school class at church. It was very interesting and giving me something new to think about with the whole adoption thing. For the record Little girls are very different from little boys. The class had 3 boys and around 5 girls any time one of the little girls would do something all the others would join in, a good example is one of the girls was hiding behind the chair next thing you know all 5 girls are hiding in a space big enough for 2, on the other hand the 3 boys were spread out throughout the room, wondering what on earth the girls were doing. This heard mentality happened time and again, I think if any of them had been potty trained we would have had the whole gaggle in the bathroom each time one of them needed to pee.

After church we went and met Don at his long Sunday layover, next time we will bring lunch but today we just hung out. After wards we ran home so Bug could change his clothes and pick up Grandma and headed over to his 1st piano recital. It was very cute, the kids all did well and it didn't last to long. Bug because he was both the youngest student and also the newest got to go 1st he played Old McDonald had a song, 1st by himself and then as a duet with his teacher. Unfortunately the battery in our video camera died at the end of his solo, so I missed the duet. At least I got the solo.

His teacher explained what he was to do and warned him that he might get nervous. And he said "I won't get nervous, I once thought I'd be nervous when I did Annie but when I got on stage I remembered that I knew what I'm supposed to do," the little stinker did fine and when we asked him afterwards if he had been nervous, he assured us he hadn't.

Oh and on an odd note, I guess the short film that he did last fall somehow ended up on TV. A friend of mine came up to me at church and said she saw us both on TV at 1st I figured she just meant his commercial, so I mentioned that I am not in it. And she said no it was some movie or show about a boy that wants to be a Dr. when he grows up. Which is exactly what the Last Letter is about. I asked her where she saw it, but she couldn't remember. I'll have to see if I can get in touch with the kid that made it and see if he knew it was showing on TV locally. If anybody else happens to see it, please let me know which channel you see it on.

Missed it by that much.

2009-06-11T22:03:00.000-07:00

Today was the end of the year celebration at Bug's school. the kids could show off projects or perform for the audience. With my little drama king I signed him up to sing, The Penguin Song.

Unfortunately I had to work, so I sent him with some of the other kids from his school and their grandparents. Then I ended up with a cancellation and was able to move up my last client so I thought that I would make it in plenty of time to see him. Sadly I was over confident and stopped to get a bite to eat, I ended up missing his performance by just a few minutes. He was # 4 and I came in at the beginning of # 6. I was so bummed and mad at myself for stopping. Everybody said he did great though and he was very proud of himself.

After the individual performances the jr high students showed off some of the dances they had learned and at the end they invited the audience to join them to learn some sort of waltz/circle dance and Bug headed on out. He was the littlest one out there but he did very good and of course looked so cute. He had a blast and even showed me how to do it after we got home.

Back to work and parent teacher conference

2009-06-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

OK my vacation is officially over, I headed back to work today. But 1st thing this morning we went to Bug's final Parent/ teacher conference of the year. I know we school-at-home, but Bug goes 1 day a week to a school with other homeschoolers. The meeting was interesting, no real surprises, he doesn't enjoy writing and does as little of it as he can get away with. He is very sweet and a lot of his answers will reflect that. The most interesting (and frustrating) part was his reading assessment.

His teacher forgot she gave him one so she did one in front of me, the results ended up so ambiguous that it was just frustrating. Bug gets in a hurry when he is reading and skips words, but the words he skips are all words he can read and they don't change the meaning of the sentences. Anyways the assessment she gave him while I was there said he is at a late 1st grade level due to his skipping words, he only misread about 5 words, not counting proper names (which don't count against him). Then she realized she had already given him the assessment, which she had used a harder reading level book for (an L vs a J) and he scored even better with fewer mistakes and a middle 2nd grade level. Honestly she probably could have picked a level N or O and he would have scored the same and been rated at the end of the 2nd grade. Oh well, so much for assessments.

Anyways my 1st day back at work went well, I was busy which is always nice, makes the day go quick.

Home again, home again, jiggedy jig

2009-06-09T23:23:00.000-07:00

Well we got home Monday morning at 2 am. Jay's graduation was really good, its still hard to believe that he is all grown up and heading off to WSU next year. He and his buddies went out with a bag. At his school they let the students choose 3 of their friends to walk the red carpet with. We kept waiting and waiting for J, but they were the very last in line to make their big entrance. He came in with 3 of his guy friends, they each had their caps decorated, sun glasses on and plenty of attitude. They might as well have been walking the red carpet at a Hollywood premier. It was definitely fun to watch.

They had the graduation at 7:00 on a Sun night so we had to head out right after it was over, even with that we didn't get on the road until 9:45 and we got home at 1:49 in the morning on Mon.

I had a bunch of errand type things to do yesterday and Bug had a math class to be at and we had a really fun dinner with my friend Meegan and her family, the waiter was pretty slow on the uptake and just didn't know what to do about the 4 kids we had with us. We thought we would keep them quiet and order and appetizer and after a half hour we asked the waiter if it would be out any time soon and he said "oh, did you want that before the meal." I thought that was the idea behind the appetizer but I guess I was mistaken, we ended up just canceling it. But the company was good and the kids all seemed to have a good time.

Today I went to a MOMS club function this morning and then had one of the gals from the club over to show her our homeschool stuff since she is thinking on doing it next year. Then I finally got around to unpacking our bags and getting started on the laundry, its no where near done, but i am headed off to bed. Got to get back to the grindstone and go to work tomorrow.

Vacations over.... kind of.

2009-06-06T23:06:00.000-07:00

Well after a fabulous week at down in Long Beach vacation is over and we have moved up to Federal Way to see my nephew's graduation tomorrow.

It was a nice week, we spent a day checking out things in Long Beach and took Bug to see the movie UP, which was pretty cute. On Wed we went and hiked the "mosquito coast," at the state park at the end of Long Beach peninsula. When we got out of the truck there were some mosquitoes buzzing around but we didn't think much about it and headed out, we ended up plagued with mosquitoes. It was a pretty hike but the bugs were so bad there was no chance to enjoy it, a ways along we found a side trail that took us back to the road and headed back to the truck as quickly as we could, chased by mosquitoes the whole time. Don ended up with at least 2 dozen bites, Bug had 2 bites and I didn't find any bites. Got to love those mosquitoes.

On Thur we spent the day down in Astoria, we went to the Flavel house, a museum in Ilwacca (sp.) and another one in Astoria. Bug had a great time at the Flavel house, they had a game where you read a out a riddle for each room and find the object in the room that is the answer. It kept him entertained throughout the museum. They also had a museum map, that had a question that you had to look for the answer in the museum and if you found the answer than you would earn a stamp and for every 3 stamps you were entered in a drawing and got a small prize. Bug thought that was pretty cool.

On Friday we just relaxed around the Condo, Don and Bug went to the pool in the morning while I did some laundry and got things ready to pack up, then we had lunch and in the afternoon we all went and hung out at the pool.

Today we got up, loaded up the truck and headed out around 9, we ended up taking the scenic route back to I-5 via Long View. We stopped for lunch in Chehalis/Centralia and went to the Helly Hansen outlet, where we found some fabulous deals. I got a couple new sets of long johns at 80% off, we got a new 1 pc snowsuit for Bug for 25.oo and Don picked up a really nice jacket.

We got to Federal Way around 3 and checked into the hotel, then headed to Tacoma to see Don's son DJ, we had a really nice visit with him and his mom Robin, Bug said hi to his brother than ran off to play with his brother and sister. DJ seemed to remember Don as soon as Don started talking to him he ran over and wanted him to pick him up and play, it was nice to see.

After that we went and got my dad and his wife and took them out to eat at Tokyo, one of those restaurants that cook the food in front of you. The food was delicious. Then we headed to the Tacoma mall to Picture People and got pictures of all of us, to help remind Bug of Grandma and Grandpa Streb, It was a fun evening and nice spending time with my dad, since we only see him every couple of years.

Dazed and Confused in ...... Long Beach?

2009-06-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

Well we are on our vacation, with only a minor hiccup to start us off. I have been saying all along that we would be in Ocean Shores, so we headed out about 8:45 yesterday morning and decided to stop and do a little shopping and kill some time in North Bend, since you can't check into the condo until 4:00. So we hung out, had lunch and did a little shopping then got back on the road. We got to Aberdeen a little after 4 and decided to do our grocery shopping there figuring it would be cheaper than in Ocean Shores, headed out around 5 and got to the condo around 5:30 or so. I run in to get us checked in and the woman says "Oh, did someone check in for you already?" and I say No, so she says "Bob and Melissa?" and I say no, Don and Alyson, so she tells me she can't find us and asks for our confirmation, so I jump on the computer to get the email with the confirmation # and show it to her and she says "Um this happens all the time, but you are not booked here, you are booked in Long Beach." Well if you know anything about the WA coastline you know that from Aberdeen you head out one peninsula to get to Ocean Shores or you continue down the coast line and out a different peninsula to get to Long Beach.

So at this point we have groceries that have been in the truck for about 40 min, we are hungry and just wasted a 35 min drive out this peninsula. Don is furious with me, so I get him somewhat calmed down, we head to the local grocery store and pick up the biggest cooler they have, load it with all the groceries, fill it with ice and head over to one of our favorite restaurants for dinner. By the end of Don's (25.00) crab dinner he was calmed down and ready to get back on the road.

So we head back to Aberdeen and get on 101 South and continue down the coast, after about an hour I call the place that the lady said we were staying to let them know that we were running late, and they tell me "we don't have you booked here." I tell them "don't tell me that, the lady said that is where we are booked" and am now getting ready to cry. The lady tells me it's OK because there is another Worldmark just down the road and that is probably where we are supposed to be, so she gives me their #.

It's a good thing she did, because after finding out that yes that is where we are booked, I got directions to the condo. There is no way I would have ever found this place without explicit directions. So we got in about 9:30 after almost 13 hours on the road. The condo is nice, not as nice as some of the Worldmark locations, but better than most hotels. Unfortunately it isn't right on the beach like the place I thought we were staying, but it does have an indoor pool and hot tub, which was Don's # 1 requirement so he didn't kill me off after all.

This morning we headed out to the ocean and played in the sand and played Beach Ball w/ Bug. We are now resting and will go try out the pool this afternoon.

Class is over

2009-05-21T22:11:00.000-07:00

I finally finished my Pre-service training for becoming a foster parent yesterday. I am glad that I know people who have adopted through the foster care system because these classes are very depressing. The way they talk you would think every child in the system is irretrievably broken. But now that the class is done I am getting very excited to move forward with this and get a little girl to do little girl things. Yeah someone new to shop for!

Garage Sales & a Parade

2009-05-19T22:03:00.000-07:00

Today I finally had my garage sale, I have been dying to clear out a bunch of stuff around the house. Honestly I would like to move and leave everything hear and start over in a new house. But since I couldn't do that , this was the next best thing.

The problem was that I also love to go to garage sales and one of my favorite community garage sales was also today. So I got up at 6:30 this morning, went downtown to drop off our chairs for the Torchlight Parade ( I love that you can drop off chairs to hold your spot for the parade and still have them there in the evening). Then I went up to the community sale and looked around for a bit, I picked up a couple slides and a kitchen. Then I headed home to get my sale set up.

My uncle Martin got there about a half hour after me to help. I had already sold the biggest thing by then, the playhouse climber that I got for free a couple of weekends ago, sold 1st thing while I was setting up for 250.00 not bad for free. The sale turned out pretty good, I sold a bunch of toys and got rid of a bit of the other stuff. Also Bug had a Lemonade stand to raise money to help with the building at our Church. He made about 10.00 which at a quarter a cup isn't too shabby.

By 3:00 I was beyond done, so we piled pretty much everything that was left on the corner and listed it under the free section of Craig's List. It was all pretty much gone by the time we left for the Parade.

During the garage sale Bug's best friend E was dropped off to stay the night, so the boys played most of the afternoon and we headed out around 6:30 to go to the Parade, Uncle Martin had run home to get something done around the house and decided to meet us down there. So we headed downtown and tried to park at our usual spot but they had no parade parking signs up this year so we had to park next door.

1st we walked down to where our chairs were to make sure they were still there and that there were no problems with our spot. 2nd we headed over to get some dinner and then the boys played for a bit.

Then we headed to get some desert, Bug wanted an elephant ear and the line was really long, by the time we got that and then got chocolate dipped strawberries for E & myself , the parade had started so we hurried back to our seats.

The Parade was really good, it took awhile for Martin to find us, but he did eventually. E made it longer than he usually does before falling asleep. I told him we are just going to keep taking him with us every year until he is finally able to stay awake through the whole parade, I figure by the time he is 12 or 13 he will make it through.

It will be sad when he does though because he always takes such cute pictures, asleep with a 60 piece marching band playing as loud as they can 12 inches from where he is fast asleep.

Good night E!

Fun Day

2009-05-12T23:50:00.000-07:00

Today was an especially fun day with my boy. We got up and got dressed and headed out to Break Away a gathering for moms at my church. Just as we were leaving Bug saw the post man and asked me to go grab the mail from him, he has been waiting for his paycheck from the commercial he did last month. So I ran out and grabbed it and lo and behold there was his paycheck, he was so excited to finally get it.

So then we headed out to church, which is always a nice time of eating and chatting, afterwards Bug wanted to go play in the big grassy area out in front of our Church, so I hung out in the car to read a magazine for a bit. It was a really windy day out and I suddenly remembered that I had a kite in the trunk. So Bug and I spent about an hour flying the kite.

Bug flying his kite.

Then we remembered his check and we headed to the bank for him to deposit it. I like him to do as much as possible, so I had him sign his check and take it up to the counter and tell them how much he wanted in savings and how much cash he wanted. They thought he was so cute so I told them this was his 1st paycheck he was cashing and he got to tell them all about his commercial. He had already decided that he wanted to use his money to buy a new Didj, I had found one on sale a couple of weeks ago and picked it up for him until he got his paycheck. So when we got home he gave me 35.00 and he got his brand new Didj, which he then spent the afternoon playing.

In the evening we headed to our church to see a concert put on by the man who makes up all the songs for Lifeway VBS. It was a lot of fun, everybody was up singing and dancing along. All the kids got to go up on stage and sing along. Then he went around and asked to kids to recite any bible verses they knew. Bug raised his hand and I thought this should be interesting since I couldn't think of any particular verses that he knew so I was quite surprised when he said "whoever serves me, must follow me" but he couldn't remember where in the bible it was. I was very impressed, most of the kids quoted John 3:16. He then went on to tell the kids what kind of life they would lead based on the verse they knew. All the John 3:16 kids where going to preach the Gospel, he said Bug would be a devoted follower of the Lord. I hope he is right.

Our TV star

2009-05-11T22:08:00.000-07:00

Bug's commercial is now on TV and we had our 1st friend tell us they saw it on TV. My friend Angie, her son is in the same school-at-home class with Bug, saw it this weekend. She said she had her cell phone in hand ready to call when she decided 11:00pm was probably to late to call. I said I probably was still awake but I definitely would have wondered.

We also got our copy of the commercial today, we got rid of cable a couple of months ago so there wasn't much chance of us seeing it on TV, so we got a copy from the production company. The commercial is very cute, it starts out with Bug's scene and they show them in the opposite order of how they filmed them. Bug's jump that he does is especially cute because he jumps and pumps his arm in the air just as the announcer says something about "empowerment".

Happy Mother's Day

2009-05-10T23:35:00.000-07:00

Happy Mother's Day! I have had a really nice mother's day this year. My son is now old enough to understand the significance to the day. His mantra for the day was "it's your special day". He started the day by making me breakfast (a big bowl of fruit loops) and even shared his own breakfast with me when he poured too much. Then we headed off to church, where he let me choose if he would get to go to class (like he wanted) or go to service with me because "it was my special day," I let him go to class.

Then we headed home and picked up Grandma and headed to a restaurant for Champagne Brunch our treat for her every year (Don met us there). Bug helped me pick out food and waited with me in line because "it was my special day." After a delicious brunch we went for a walk along the river trail, then Don headed back to work and we headed home.

At home Bug gave me my presents 1st was a vase of flowers (colorful daisies) from him and grandma, 2nd was a homemade kite, that says "I love mom" and 3rd was a potted plant and he had personally painted the pot for me, along with a home made card that says "mom i wish you a hapee muthrs dae" and has 2 flowers on it. We spent the after noon relaxing a round the house, we read some of the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and he let me watch a movie while he entertained himself.

For bedtime he read me a story called Mommy's Special Day. It was a wonderful day antime i asked him to do something he would say alright because "it's your special day," and it really was.

Thank you Bug for making this the most special Mother's Day yet.

Soccer

2009-05-09T14:20:00.000-07:00

Today was Bug's final soccer game for the spring. Apparently in SYSA when you sign up for a team in fall you are automatically signed up for the same team in the spring. So we got a car just before Easter weekend, we got a call from one of the other moms from the team, apparently our coach was no where to be found and they had asked her to take over. I wasn't planning on having Bug participate, but there are only 6 players on a team and we lost one last fall, so with out the coaches son and Bug the team would have been down to only 3. So my uncle has been taking Bug to the practices on Thur and his games on Sat ( I have had to work the last few weeks). So I finally got to see a game today. Bug has improved from last fall, but still spends most of his time wandering about the field, while the other kids chase the ball.

A new lttle girl for us?

2009-04-28T22:59:00.000-07:00

Don and I have been talking about doing foster care for about 4 years or more, but for various reasons we have not followed through with this. About a month ago Don came home and said he has been thinking a lot about having a little girl so I asked him how he thought to get one and he said adopt. So we have been seriously discussing it for the last month and have decided to go through the foster to adopt program.

Tonight I went to a 3 hour orientation and started filling out all the paperwork. I will start the 27 hours of training next Mon. I will have class from 5 till 9:30 every Mon and Wed for the next 3 weeks. We are planning to get a little girl between 2-4 to adopt and will see what happens along the way. There are no guarantees with Foster care, but I have 2 close friends who got their children that way and know that it can work out. Wish us luck.

Zoo day and my little monkey.

2009-04-28T14:29:00.000-07:00

This morning my MOMS club had a zoo day (a playdate for all the kids) at the local Jump and Party. One of the places with lots of inflatable slides and play areas. Apparently my little Bug is now getting to old for this place, I thought we had at least a couple more years. But he has taken to making things more intersting by climbing up on the top of the bars that you are supposed to climb though (about 4 ft up in the air) and jumping about 4 ft over onto the top of the tunnel. He has become quite the little monkey.

National scrapbooking day.

2009-04-25T22:56:00.000-07:00

Today was a busy day, it started out at 4:30 am and if you know me you know that is REALLY early for me. Our church is looking to build and had a 24 hour prayer vigil from last night until tonight. So I went and prayed for an hour from 5-6am, I was a little nervous about this, as my pastor said this is 57 minutes longer than you might normally pray. But the time went really quickly and was a real blessing to me.

After that I went to a big community garage sale that I go to every year and picked up some new toys to resale. It becomes a mad house by 9:00 but wasn't too bad at 6:30 in the morning. I found a couple really great deals. Though I hate it when people say no earlys, because they never mean it. There was a sale with a play house and just as I was pulling up to ask about it they put out a big sign that said "we open at 8, NO Earlys". So I drove off and came back right at 8 and there were already half a dozen people shopping and the playhouse had already been sold. I was quite annoyed so I left and walked to the sale next door. I found a slide by itself off to the side and was looking at it possibly for Bug's tree house and the man came up and told me the rest of it was in the back yard and I could have it for free. It turned out to be a 2 story play house with the slide worth about 200.00. Definitely worth missing the play house.

After the garage sale I went to the Spokane Country Club for a national scrap booking day event. I did seated massage all day for the scrap bookers. We (my mom came to help) ended up pretty busy, i did one shortly after I got there and then had a nice lunch break, really good food. Then I was busy steady through till after 4:00. It turned out to a really profitable day overall.

JBF Weekend

2009-04-19T22:18:00.000-07:00

This weekend was JBF weekend, Just Between Friends, a huge children's consignment event that they have twice a year. I got a call from the owner a couple of weeks ago asking if I wanted to work at the sale. I always volunteer on Sundays at the sale. Volunteers get to shop the presales 1st and get the best deals. So I took her up on the offer and worked for 7 hours on Thur, 8 hours on Sat and 8 hours on Sun. It was a lot of fun and I got to be one of the 1st people to shop. I found a bunch of new jeans for Bug, I already have a ton of shirts for him for next year, so I had to make sure to ignore the shirts. I ended up with about 10 new pairs of pants and 8 or so new shorts in size 7, 8 and 10. I also found a couple of games for him.

Bug is a Star

2009-04-15T23:19:00.000-07:00

OK not really, but he did film his 1st commercial today. We found out a week and a half ago that he did get the commercial that he auditioned for back in March. So today he filmed for Washington Trust bank. He was "super hero boy" along with another little boy. It's a good thing we homeschool and have a lot of flexibility, originally they were supposed to shoot it last week, then it got moved to Mon, then Tue and was finally at 7:30 this morning. We were the 1st ones to the location and then the other mom and her son who plays the other super hero boy, so we visited for a bit and the the production company got there and set up.

They came and looked at all the different clothes we had brought and picked a plain blue shirt, blue rocket ship jammie pants and blue rain boots and then gave him a red cape to wear. It was not an outfit I would ever have let him wear, let alone taken pictures in but it turned out cute.

They had the boys run in front of a white picket fence running away from the camera, Bug was so cute in the middle of the run there is a sidewalk and Bug decided to jump over it. He came back and told the director about the jump and the guy says "good thinking, you go with that." So Bug jumped on each take. Then they set up the camera so that the boys would run through the shot, a man followed them along holding their capes and through them up in the air just as they enter the shot.

The other little boy that was in it was too cute. He is 5 but looks more like he was 4, he was a full head shorter than Bug. When the director was giving them the directions on what to do, Bug is talking and agreeing and following right along and the other little boy was standing their with his arms crossed and a mad look on his face. I think his mom started to get a little worried, he just looked so serious. But as soon as the director said action he ran off, with a big smile looking too cute. He even had the best little brother run, with his feat a stomping and his elbows all akimbo.

For the final shot they put the little boy behind the picket fence so you could see his face through the slats and Bug was in front of it. Bug looks at his"brother" and then looks at the camera with a big smile. Very cute. After they started filming it took less than 45 minutes. The boys both had a great time. It will be on TV starting May 5th and then be pulled for the summer and resume a gain in the fall. I can't wait to see how it turned out.

Happy Easter/ Happy Spring

2009-04-12T13:05:00.001-07:00

We have had a fun weekend around here. My mom's birthday was on Thur, so my sister and I surprised her with her and my niece and nephew coming for a visit, starting Friday night. My mom was so happy and surprised that she cried. She told me today it was the best present she could have asked for her birthday.

Yesterday Bug and I celebrated spring by going egg hunting. We started at Yokes (a local grocery store) at 8am and then went to one at a local park at 10 where it rained, it was fun but luckily very quick. Then we headed to our favorite egg hunt at the church where Bug used to go to Montessori when he was little. They always have a ton of eggs and are well organized. We met my friend Brenda and her husband and kids there. Bug got a ton of eggs, won a cake in the cake walk and got 3 prizes. Then we headed home to go out to lunch with mom, Anissa and the kids. After lunch they decided to head out for a scenic drive, so Bug and I went to our friend Meegan's Church Easter celebration. We missed their egg hunt but Bug had fun bouncing in the bounce house, getting his face painted, and getting balloons and candy from the clown. Then we headed to our CPA to sign our tax forms (more on this later) and went home to get dinner for everyone. We had a nice birthday dinner for mom with our guests plus, my uncle Martin and cousin Jamie.

After dinner Bug and I headed out to one last egg hunt, a flashlight one that is put on by the local parks and rec. I forgot a flashlight this year and it seemed much darker than usual. Also they expanded the search area by 3-4 times what it usually is. It took us a full hour to find all the eggs and we had Brenda, my friend Cheryl and her friend Bree and her husband there and we all looked for each others kids eggs. It was a ton of fun, when we got back we had cake and Bug headed off to bed.

Oh an extra note about my trip to the CPA we ended up getting fabulous news, we had not been paying taxes on the income I have made this year, because in the past I have always worked somewhere else and payed taxes there, so we just weren't in the habit. Anyways we have been very worried about how much we were going to owe in taxes figuring it would be at least a couple thousand dollars, but after all was said and done our wonderful, super duper fabulous CPA ended up actually getting us a refund, it's not much of course but anything is better than owing. I love that man!

Hello again.

2009-04-04T21:11:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been so long since I have posted, I haven't been feeling myself lately and have been quite busy to boot.

As for feeling not myself, I have been feeling like I am either missing something or that something is missing for the last few months. I have finally decided after looking around me that I am going to go back to school either starting this summer or next fall. Originally I was thinking of trying to get into a Physical Therapy Assistant program that the local community college has. But what I would really like to be is a pediatric Occupational Therapist which takes a master's degree. Since at this point I can't quite see my way to a master's I am going to start slowly at the local Community College and see where it leads me.

As for being busy I stepped up with in my MOMS club and took over the party planning committee w/ my friend Brenda and just got finished planning and hosting an Easter Egg hunt for about 60+ kids. It was fun except that there ended up being some sort of mix up with the place that we had it and they didn't arrive to unlock the doors until 8 minutes after the hunt was supposed to have started. Luckily everyone was very patient and those that were able to pitched in and helped us get it set up quickly, everyone seemed to have a good time after that.

I have also spent a lot of time reading lately, we finally got to fed up with Dish network awhile back and got rid of them. So even though we still have most channels w/o the DVR or even knowing which channel is which and what's on each of them. I just haven't been watching much TV. The only shows I have kept up with are Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice and Gossip Girl and even those i just watch on the Internet. This is the 1st time I have ever missed a season of Survivor, which seems really strange when I say it, but I don't think anything of it from day to day. I always did prefer reading anyway.

Audition Today

2009-03-25T12:48:00.000-07:00

We got an email from Big Fish, (the agency that Bug is listed with) yesterday, telling us of an audition for him today. So today after Lunch bunch we headed to the audition along with a few dozen other kids and waited for his turn. When he got called in he introduced himself to the director and handed him his head shot and resume.

The director then told him where to stand and asked him a few questions, including who is your favorite superhero. Bug told him about one that he had made up (big surprise). The man then asked Bug to show him how a superhero flies and Bug looked down to make sure he stayed on the X that the man said to stay on (always the good rule follower, my boy is) and flew a round a bit. The director then asked him to smile and Big gave one of his worst smiles and I thought Oh, no. Then the director told him to wave at the camera and he waved and gave the best smile. That was it and away we went. Wish him luck, we will find out hopefully by next week.

The obsession continues....

2009-03-19T15:36:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned recently I have been obsessed with the Twilight series of books. I have now seen the movie 4 times and read all 4 books plus the manuscript twice. Well we decided to head over to Seattle (Bug and I) for our 1st trip of the year and spend some time out at the ocean. When I was looking at availabilities for our time share I noticed one up in Port Townsend area and decided to stay there and then head down to Forks for the day.

My friend Tonia and her girls are also obsessed with the books so they came with us. So on Tue we drove down to Forks, there is Twilight everything there. And a ton of other silly people (like me) driving around taking pictures of all the local sights. Since the movie wasn't filmed there, this pretty much amounts to the "Welcome to Forks" sign and the sign for the high school. They had a couple really neat shops with all sorts of Twilight memorabilia.

After checking out Forks, we headed down to the La Push beach on the Quileute Indian Reservation and even went hiking along the Jetty at 1st Beach, lots of drift wood perfect to hear scary stories of Werewolves and Cold Ones.

We had such a great day. The beach was gorgeous and the town was very friendly and more than happy to take our money for their souvenirs.

Bug's last game.

2009-02-28T19:53:00.000-08:00

Bug had his last game of the basketball season today. It was the funniest game I have ever been to. Bug loves basketball, but he is a pretty spacey kid, so his idea of playing is to dance around the court while the game goes on. Needless to say he rarely gets the ball, since the other boys have figured out its not a great idea to pass it to him, unless you want the other team to get it. Usually if he does get the ball, it's after the other team has scored a point and then he dribbles it down court to where the other team is waiting and then passes it off to one of his teammates.

Well today he was playing as usual and I guess the ref decided he needed some help. SO when Bug got the ball the ref stood in front of him and encouraged him all the way down the court, down to the other basket. He kept the kids from both teams from getting in his way and made them move so he could shoot it, when he missed the basket the ref grabbed the ball and gave it back to him for another shot, he did this like 3 more times before one of the other kids got the ball and took off back down the court. I about cried I was laughing so hard. But apparently that wasn't enough for the ref, so a little later in the game when Bug got the ball again he did the same thing but when Bug continued to miss the shot the ref picked him up and let him slam dunk the ball. It was priceless. Bug was so thrilled to have gotten a basket and be the only one to slam dunk.

I of course will always remember that Ref's kindness to my son. Bug on the other hand being the boy that he is always thinks of others. So when I asked him what he was thinking about while he was playing he answered "good sportsmanship, remember when my friend got hurt (one of his team mates got knocked down during the game) I made sure he was OK and patted him on the shoulder." As a reward he earned a white star today for 'Christ-like behavior'. Gotta love that little Bug.

That's it......I'm obsessed!

2009-02-28T19:46:00.000-08:00

I am totally obsessed with the Twilight series. I have been hearing about these books for over a year now and had absolutely no interest in them. Then 2 Saturdays ago, my mom and I went out to the movies while waiting for Blue and Bug to come back on the train. I wanted to see Yes Man and she wanted to see Twilight, so we went and saw both. That got the interest started, then on that Wed we had a double date with my friend Brenda and her husband and saw it again and I got the 1st book from her. I was hooked, Blue went out of town over the weekend and I ended up reading all four books plus the manuscript (unfinished) for Midnight Sun in 5 days. I have really been wanting to see the movie again now that I have read the books. So I am headed out tonight to see if for the 3rd time with some friends. I can't wait. I am already planning ahead for the midnight release party on the 20th.

A great day.

2009-02-16T20:29:00.000-08:00

Today was a great day. It started off with a very interesting MOMS club activity that my friend Meegan did, she did a mini lecture to show us how to plan out meals for a month. I am the worst planner in general especially at planning out dinner. I swear every night 5:00 rolls around and I think "oh crap I have to do dinner again". This lecture was very helpful to me, now if I can just plan out some time to plan out my meals.

Anyways after that Bug and I headed out to go skiing with my friend Lisa, her husband and three boys. The morning was pretty much just hanging out on the bunny slope, Lisa decided to work on snowboarding and her husband skied their youngest around. In the afternoon Lisa and the youngest decided to take a break, so Gary and I headed up with the 3 boys and I showed them some of our favorite runs. It was a blast! Gary is a good skier and with him all the boys were inspired and we all just flew down the runs. I love to go fast when I am skiing. Plus it was a beautiful day to boot and Bug and I closed down the mountain once again, being the last ones up the lift.

After that we headed back to town to get to Bug's basketball practice, where we had a substitute coach. I really appreciated him. Bug has a really hard time shooting the ball and he spent quite a bit of time working with Bug trying to help him figure it out. It was wonderful to see

So good to be home.

2009-02-15T22:12:00.000-08:00

It is so nice to have my boys home.

They had a good time on their trip and the train ride home went well. This morning it was so nice to lay in bed all cuddled together (Bug came in to wake me up this morning). Then just lay there reading books with my Bug.

This morning Bug and I headed over to my work, we had a spring cleaning day. While I cleaned Bug handed out valentines to all my coworkers that he had made with Grandy (Blue's dad's wife) while in Seattle. The original plan he had was to hand them out to friends he made while on the train, but Blue accidentally checked them with the luggage.

After cleaning Bug and I headed over to grab some subs and then went to see the play "Alexander who's not, not, not, not, not, not going to move". It was a very cute production and so nice to spend some special time with my boy.

Here is Bug with "Alexander".

When we got home we played Super Paper Mario for a bit, then Blue and I headed out for our Valentines day dinner at a fabulous steak house called Wolf Lodge, in Idaho. Dinner was delicious and Blue and I had a nice time catching up on everything.

Bye-bye Guineas

2009-02-15T21:42:00.001-08:00

It's official, I am the world's meanest mom!

I have been frustrated for some time about Bug's lack of interest in the Guineas. We always have to remind him to feed and water them, he never takes them out to play with and rarely ever talks to them. After finding them completely without water numerous times, I kept warning him that I would get rid of them. So about a week ago I decided I had had it with them and listed them on Craig's list. I had been in contact with a couple people but nothing serious until today. So this girl and her parents drove in to town today to get them. I hadn't told Bug yet since I wasn't sure what would happen, so when they called to say they were on their way, I figured I had better tell him.

So as we drove home I told him that they were going to a new home and oh boy did the tears start to flow. I think all in all I handled it pretty well. When we got home I asked him if he wanted to take them out to say goodbye and he said "yes". So we got them out, put them on a towel and he visited and petted them. He helped me find all of the Guineas stuff and gathered it for the new owners. He alternated between crying and asking questions.

Here is a pic of him saying his tearful goodbye's.

The new owners were great. I told them that it was a bit more emotional than I thought it would be and they came in and let Bug introduce them to the boys and tell them all the things they liked. They then told him about their place and that they grew their own veggies and had their own apple trees, both of which the guineas would love. The girl that got them even brought a thank you card for Bug that she had made, with a picture of the boys that she had drawn on the front. By the time they left he seemed to be feeling OK about it, but I'm sure I will be hearing about them for the next few years.

Happy Valentines Day

2009-02-14T23:42:00.000-08:00

Bug and Blue are still in Seattle on their trip, but I still had a very nice Valentines day. I woke up this morning to a text from Blue that said " look out the side door." There on the side porch were the beautiful roses that you see above. It was so nice to feel loved even 300 miles away.

Later in the afternoon my friend Brenda and her family came over and visited and in the evening my mom and I went out for drinks and appetizers and then out to see "Twilight" and "Yes Man". I didn't really want to see Twilight, but I am so glad I did, it was an excellent movie, definitely one that I will be buying. Yes man was also a good movie, very funny. I will be heading out in just a minute to go pick up my boys from the Amtrak station. Hopefully they had a good trip home. I will be so HAPPY to see them, I have really missed them.

Mini Vacation & Solitude

2009-02-10T21:30:00.000-08:00

Blue, Bug and I took a mini vacation this week. We headed out Sun to go skiing for 3 day up at 49 degrees. We take this trip every year and usually stay at a lodge up there. But this year they had raised their rates by 40.00 a night so we decided to try one of the hotels in town. It ended up to be a really nice place.

Sun we met our friend Cheryl and her boys E & G up there. It was a gorgeous day, bright and sunny, barely a jacket needed. Bug and E had a great time together. We tried to get G up skiing but he didn't even want to stand up on the skis. So after me basically carrying him down for 2 runs Cheryl took him to the daycare. The rest of the afternoon was great and the boys did well. E is quite the daredevil and is hilarious to watch. He'll tackle anything, fall down and just say "cool".

Mon was kind of foggy and cold, but I got a wonderful massage that evening that smoothed out the rough edges. Tue was sunny in the morning and started fogging in, in the afternoon. It was so nice to get away, just the three of us.

Then dark and early this morning Bug & Blue headed out for a trip to Seattle, just the two of them. I'm sure I will enjoy some alone time, but tonight I miss them.

Fun filled weekend.

2009-02-01T21:21:00.000-08:00

I'm really loving not working on Saturdays. This was another fun filled weekend. On Friday night after work I went to my friend Rochelle's for a passion party, we had a really fun group there. So there was lots of laughter and jokes all around.

On Sat Bug had a basketball game and we had his best friends E & G over. They were fine when they were at home but would not keep their hands to themselves at the game. Finally I warned E that if he didn't knock it off I would not get him lunch. Well he must have not realized that lunch is optional at my house and kept right on misbehaving. So I bought G and I some lunch and E got to watch us eat it and watch Bug's game.

Of course after the game he and Bug had lunch at home, but I'm pretty sure I got my point across.

Sat night was our holiday party for my work. We had such a great time, there was great food, good booze and the present exchange was hugely fun. There was a lot of stealing and after much wrangling I ended up with the best gift of all. One of the gals had as her gift 3 lunches homemade by her. I hate to cook and have gotten to the point where I rarely do it so this was a fabulous gift for me. I can't wait to enjoy my 1st meal.

Schedules and homeschooling.

2009-01-28T08:49:00.000-08:00

For my church home school group meeting for this month, the theme is schedules and organization. So the chore was to write down your ideal schedule and then to write down what your actual schedule was. It was a great exercise for me to do.

I have in my head what I would like my schedule to be like, but of course my real schedule is absolutely nothing like what it in my head. I am not a scheduled person, I swear I wake up everyday thinking "what should we do today". So unless I have something concrete on my schedule, we just pretty much follow my whimsy, which can change several times throughout the day.

The nice thing about writing out the schedule was getting a better picture of how much learning Bug does that isn't sit down and do a lesson type learning. Those that worry about home-schoolers and social skills don't have to worry about my boy since quite a bit of what we did fits in the category of 'social skills'.

It should be interesting at the meeting tomorrow to see if I am in the majority or the minority, with my lack of a real schedule.

No more DVR/Dish

2009-01-28T08:24:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago my hubby got a call from Dish Network saying the bill hadn't been paid and since I pay the bills of course I end up hearing about it. I double check and of course I have paid the bill, so as we look into it more, it's not that I didn't pay the bill. I just paid the regular amount and apparently they had raised our bill (yet again). So over 2 months I was just under 20.00 behind, hence the call. So anyways, I was pretty annoyed to say the least and we had already been talking about canceling the dish, so I had Blue call them up and cancel it.

Of course with the DVR we didn't even notice at 1st, since we had plenty of shows to still watch, but we have now gone through them. We have a couple things still on there but nothing to interesting. Honestly I figured without the Dish, I would spend more time on the Internet and watch more movies, but so far neither of those things have happened. Even Bug has been watching A LOT less TV and he still even has shows recorded on the DVR (we haven't mailed them back yet). In fact when I went to turn the TV on the other night to listen to a concert I had recorded, Bug even asked me why I was turning it on. Normally he would ask me "what are we going to watch?"

Hopefully it will continue like this, before I started dating Blue I did not even have extended cable just 2-13. I loved it that way and I got a lot more reading done. This week I finished a book that I started forever ago and also read all of 'Confessions of a Shopaholic' which I picked up on Sat and finished that evening. Good book by the way, I will have to find the next one at the library and see how it is.

Basketball and more skiing.

2009-01-21T11:14:00.000-08:00

Bug had his 2nd basketball game on Sat, he is continuing to do well. He is afraid of the ball, and the other kids know this so unfortunately they don't pass it to him. But he is enjoying being out there and he does a good job of defending his man and he loves to cheer on his team when he is on the side lines.

Mon we went skiing with my friend Lisa and her 3 boys who are 7, 5 and 3 and just learning to ski. We went to 49N and showed them around our favorite mountain. We spent most of the morning on the bunny slope and then at lunch she took the 3 yo to daycare. Then we headed to the top of the mountain and skied the green run down. Bug and the 7 yo did fine but the 5 yo really struggled.

So after that we separated and she took the 5 yo back to the bunny hill and I took the big boys up to our favorite blue run. I let the boys ride up together since they had been fine on the lift all day. Well they got so into talking that they forgot to get off at the end and honestly it took them a good minute before they had even realized it. The operator ended up bringing them around to the other side and we lifted them down off the lift, too funny.

At the top the 7yo looked down the hill and said "is this a green run?" And I said "nope it's a blue run and your gonna ski it." So he looks down the hill again and looks at me and says "OK" and away we went. The boys both did great and we went a couple more times, then did the 1/2 pipe and headed into the lodge. Bug had such a great time skiing with his buddies and it was nice for me to have some adult company to visit with too.

We headed back into town just in time to get to basketball practice, we were about 5 minutes late, but the day had been well worth it.

Double Moms night outs.

2009-01-18T11:26:00.000-08:00

This was a very busy weekend. On Friday we had our MOMS club MNO at one of those make your own meals to take home places. There ended up being only 3 of us there but it was still fun. I really enjoyed the place it is called Cena and is owned by a young couple who go really out of their way to make you feel comfortable and make sure you have everything you need. I ended up making 6 different meals: 2 salmon meals, chicken enchiladas, sticky orange chicken, stir fry beef, crock pot brown sugar chicken and a sour cream lime chicken meal. Everything was easy to make and looks like it will taste delicious, I will have to let you know how they are as we get around to eating them.

On Sat I went to a ladies night out with the gals that left MOMS club, they have started a new group to have one MNO a month and one kids activity a month. I invited my friends Cheryl (mike's wife) and Brenda to go to with us. We went to Martguerita night at Polka Dot Pottery, you get unlimited drinks, chips w/ 7 layer dip, veggies and m & m's, while you paint your piece. There was 11 of us there so of course it was a blast.

I ended up making a wall hanging for Easter. I promised myself before I went, that I wouldn't make anything for Bug because that is generally what I do. I have made him a plaque for his room that says his name and has a firetruck, a moon shaped bank, a cross shaped box to celebrate his baptism and a celebration plate for him to use on special occasions. So this time I decided to make something for me or the house. I had the hardest time figuring out what to make and finally found the idea for this plaque with an Easter egg, that says 'Happy Easter'. My plan is to make a similar plaque for each of the holidays, then I can just rotate them throughout the year. Plus there is enough holidays that I won't run out of ideas for quite awhile.

Brenda ended up making a serving dish with an Easter bunny on it and Cheryl made herself a nice big mug for her morning coffee. I can't wait till next Sat when I can pick them up and see how they all turned out.

A skiing we go....

2009-01-18T10:42:00.000-08:00

We have not had any snow around here lately and it is starting to make me sad. We had 6' 8" of snow in about 3 weeks and nothing since. Because of the tremendous amount of snow we had we have snow banks lining all the streets and some that are up to 25' in parking lots and everything is looking all dingy. We need some new snow to pretty everything up again.

We have even been getting up skiing and the mountains can definitely use a few more inches. It is like spring skiing conditions, which isn't all bad.

Bug is signed up for a home school ski program at our local mountain, it is 6 weeks of lessons, every Friday from 10-12 for only 60.00, (which is a phenomenal deal). Last Friday was his 1st lesson and as we were heading up there all we could see was fog, fog and more fog. This mountain is known for being rainy and foggy, so I didn't think much of it. But just before we reached the top, we got above the fog and it ended up being a gorgeous day up there. (see 1st pic)

Bug got started with his new lessons, I was a little nervous because this is such a huge program, there were at least 100 kids up there. At 1st they had him signed up as a never ever, so we got him moved to the other group, then they took the whole troop to the top of the bunny hill and had them ski down, so that they could divide them up further. He ended up in a group of advanced level 2, which seemed to be a pretty good fit for him. They didn't ski much after all of that, but they get to stay with the same group and teacher for the next 5 weeks so it should go faster after this.Here is bug listening to the teacher (3rd from the right).

I wasn't planning on skiing but it was so pretty up there, I ended up buying a pass and getting in a few runs, unfortunately I looked like a total hillbilly, since I didn't have my bibs or gloves with me so I ended up skiing in my jeans. Oh well it was worth it.