2010 part one

I should write on the year. Wrap up 2010. And do many posts on it too because I need more posts under 2010 (as previously mentioned). First of all, this year kicked my butt a little. I started the year excited. School. I loved school! Then I got called to the primary presidency. (That's still a head scratcher.) I was stressed (it doesn't take much) so I dropped the math class. I had this hand pain that made writing a lot difficult too. So I only had the online art class, but I loved it. I finally felt I had direction. I was working toward something. I've had the raising the kids thing going on for years and I really, really love my kids but I needed to go back to school. I've known that for a long time.

So there I was, in school. I had direction, a major in elementary ed., I was being a great example to my kids. To my girls especially. I believe that kids are more successful as adults if they see positive roll models of success in their parents. I love my parents but I didn't have that from them. So I really wanted to be that kind of role model. And don't give me that whole, well being a mom is the most important job there is for a woman. Don't give me that because I KNOW that. At least if you are a mom it is. If you are not then you are just putting down the woman who is not a mom. So I know that and I constantly think about if what I'm doing, whatever I'm doing, is best for my kids. But I wanted to show them I could be successful somewhere else too. I still want to show them that. But I'm a chicken and I worry about a million different things. In the fall I started with three classes and ended up with zero. One was dropped so I could focus on math, which I am scared of. One was dropped because I was annoyed with the teacher and the 800 page book for a two credit class and the fact that I could not get the 800 page book for the two credit class. The whole thing started off badly and it wasn't even because of my own bumbling which believe me happens often enough. So I was down to just the math class and then we found out Isabella has celiac disease and I would have to learn to cook everything without gluten (read: wheat flour). That and I was scared of the class and the teacher didn't know how to teach very well. Psyched out again. So I took the semester off.

Things started out great then suddenly I was back to square one, actually more like square negative ten or something like that. I was unsure of myself, I didn't know if I was doing the right thing with school. I'm still not sure. There were other obstacles too. After a while you begin to wonder, are these obstacles something I'm supposed to be persevering on and fighting my way around? Or are these obstacles telling me to go in another direction? My thoughts were, well screw it all, I'm just going to go get a job at Barnes & Noble. Because I've always sort of wanted to work at Barnes & Noble. But I'm not about to get a job (if they'd have me) at a store that is at least 30 minutes away from my house, depending on the location, just to be paid minimum wage. So I've been thinking, thinking, thinking. I've come up with an idea. I don't know if it is the best idea. I'm beginning to think there is no best idea. I've wondered if it may be settling. But is there really settling or is there just making choices and trying to come up with the choice that makes the most sense? I don't know. The one thing I do know is the biggest reason this is so hard to figure out is because I've got these three young people in my life and how it affects them for the next ten years is of utmost importance to me. Making everything a hundred times more confusing than it would be otherwise. That and money. Money always complicates things too.

One More

Another video, because I'm still bulking up 2010 on the blog and this was my favorite song going into 2010. Sad and beautiful. It came out in 2006 though. I like music on my own timetable. Maybe in five years I'll be into Lady Gaga. Hahahahahaha! I don't know who's video this is. I'm pretty sure it's not the Decemberists. It cracks me up when people make their own videos for songs and stick them on youtube. It reminds me of when I was in third grade and we'd make up these elaborate lip sync performances to songs from Grease.

Home

There are only a couple of days left in the year and I've only done thirty or so blog posts this year. I keep thinking maybe it's the end of the blogging road for me but I still have something to say that I haven't said yet. I'm not exactly sure what that is though. It's facebook. Too many one liners. There's nothing left to expound upon after so many of those. So I need to start bulking up the blog; and I need to get those singamajigs off the page. They were cute at first but rapidly grew annoying. I'll start with this video.* One of the funnest songs of the year. I've always liked hippies. Have occasionally wanted to be a hippy. I could never reach hippy status though because I'm too uptight, straightlaced and I insist on shaving everyday (legs get too itchy otherwise.) I miss my old hippyish next door neighbors. They brought balance to the place.
*Don't worry, this blog isn't going to turn into a showcase for youtube videos.

Peace, Love and Understanding

One of my favorite Christmas songs that isn't actually a Christmas song but should be, and a good version of it too.

Thanksgiving!

I hosted Thanksgiving for the first time. And it had been about five years since I last cooked a turkey. I'd like to thank all the people who offered up the Reynolds Cooking Bag suggestion (if I had a dollar for every time...) but I decided to to go with my mom's tried and true foil pan meets foil tent covering method. You can't really go wrong following mom's advice on Thanksgiving, right? And that green bean salad showed up long after I left home so I don't have to incorporate that. Okay, I think that was really my sister's contribution, but whatever. So we had Brent's dad and step mom Karen over and Brent's sister and her boyfriend and their little Gabby girl over. The kids loved playing with little Gabby. The girls love babies and toddlers. I happened to watch the Ellen show for about two minutes with Isabella a couple of days before and she was giving away Singamajigs. Cutest, funniest toys I've seen in a long time. Then I ran into them at Walmart the next day for $9 each so I used Gabby as an excuse to buy one. So the kids could play with it with her. Well it's a lot cheaper than having another baby of my own just so I can buy little kid toys again. If you haven't seen these things:



Mine is a little more ghetto looking than these and I think it's probably best to have a chorus of them, but one will have to suffice. Anyway, we all had a good time and the food turned out good I thought. All indications point to no food poisoning. Now I don't want to get rid of the extra table. I kind of like the table for ten sitting in the middle of the living room. But it's going to get pretty tight once the Christmas tree shows up. I think my table setting would have impressed the editors at Country Living magazine (except I had disposable dishes, I should have scoured antique stores for coordinating dishes. But again, whatever.)

 

The next day  the kids were about to have their sugary cereal that they only get on the weekends for breakfast and I thought, Hmm, pumpkin pie and fruit salad would probably be healthier than that. So...

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving with family and friends!

Zoe's Eleventh

Yes, Zoe's birthday was a couple of months ago and I never posted anything on it. At least we celebrated it on time, huh? So here's a little now. She's 11 now! And she had a sleepover/late night party with a few of her friends. I'm pretty sure they all had fun and they are all good kids who aren't too crazy so it didn't drive the mom crazy having all those girls sleeping over.

You're All Welcome Here

Euuugh. There's the made up word of the day. That and withdrawling. I just saw someone use that and it struck me as funny. So life sucks right now. I'm not going to sugar coat it. Oh, the expounding I would like to do right now. But sadly my personal issues need to stay tucked in my head, or at least thrown up all over Brent for a while. I need like twelve people in twelve categories to be able to vent to. You go in the category of politics (which would probably be pretty easy because I've been working on my apathy). You, over there, you take religion. You take paranoia and hypochondria. And what do you want? Hormonal induced depression? Or, what am I going to do with my life crisis. Or, what am I doing with my life crisis. And you. You get gluten free bread.

Really it's just one of those funks or fogs or something that will eventually lift and all will be fine-ish again. There was a glimmer of the fog lifting yesterday. There was also this good line in a song I was listening to: "Some guy on the net thinks I suck and he should know, he's got his own blog." Funny. And I almost feel a little better now. Plus Monday I'm going to start working on Project: Holy Crap I'm Going To Be 40 In About Six Months So I've Got To Get It Together in A Good Way Before Then. Yeah, I'll probably go down that sad little path a little.

I truly believe that being happy all the time is overrated. No, you don't want to walk around all the time like you can't get over the disappointment you met in your teenage years but I think it's good to embrace life and all the emotions it brings. With the caveat that you are still a functional human being and able to get done the necessities and not beat your kids or bug the crap out of your husband. (And yes, I may use the words "crap" and "sucks" too often.) But I see people say things like, "I have decided to allow nothing but happiness into my life." Sure happiness is a choice but you can't remove all pain and unpleasantness from your life. Unless, perhaps, you are very shallow and not capable of feeling a range of emotions or doing anything productive with those emotions. This takes nothing away from those who are naturally optimistic. I see them out there. They are a mystery to me but I know they exist. It's kind of like when I was reading this ADHD forum once (when I was convinced I had ADD, not ADHD though. I've never had enough energy to claim ADHD). Some of the people were debating the pros and cons of medication. Some were of the opinion that they did not want to be on medication because it masked their true personality and forced them into a mold that would make them fit in with society, making themselves sort of a shadow of their true self. I think there is definitely a point there. (*Disclaimer, I am in no way qualified to tell someone with ADHD what to do.*) I think those of us who occasionally go to "the dark side" (and I'm not talking about Satan here so relax) should embrace that side (and really, this is everyone at least once in a while). Like I said before, don't embrace it so much that it is all encompassing and you can't function. Also, too much of that can get a bit self involved and narcissistic. Embracing the good and the bad brings about a clarity I think. See, I was feeling quite blah when I started writing this and I already feel better.

Don't get me wrong. I know I have a good life. Got the husband, kids, etc, down in a good way. But sometimes the crazy- it's there. I don't want to feed it too much, but I want it to know he has just as much right to be here as happy and well adjusted do too.

Halloween 2010

Isabella is a dead princess if you can't tell and friend is Annabeth from the Percy Jackson books.

Noah is brain injury boy

nerdy Zoe and nerdy friend

I Remember

We Have Bread!

And it doesn't have any rice in it. I made my first loaf of gluten free bread today. My first loaf of bread ever, really. I know, I'm lame. I'm still getting over that bread making debacle from foods class in 11th grade. The bread is pretty good too. Tastes a little like wheat and a little like something else. I guess that something else would be buckwheat flour, sorghum flour and teff flour. Whatever they taste like. It's healthier than wheat bread too. Take that wheat! I guess teff is the grain that makes Ethiopean marathon runners run super fast and win all the gold medals at the olympics. Good to know, 'cause I could use an energy boost. So the bread didn't rise quite as good as it should have...I think. But other than that it turned out good. I have to give credit to this cool gluten free blogger where I found this recipe.I guess she's spent hours perfecting her bread. The internet is pretty awesome.

I'm guessing it's not supposed to be bumpy on top, but not bad for a first attempt.

Gl, Gl

I'm debating whether I should start a new blog or not. This one will stay around, although it is quite dead in the water at times. I'm going to be rambling on about gluten free cooking a lot so it may be a good idea to make a new blog-call it "The Incompetent Gluten Free Chef". Now you're all gonna want to steal that name. Or maybe I will ramble on about my new adventure here. Who knows for sure today.

I will say this: I am wary of baking with a flour that has garbanzo beans and fava beans in it. Beans in your cookies are just not natural. But the oatmeal raisin cookies did turn out pretty good. So maybe I'll give it another try. A side note, I don't know all the rules on oats yet. You can ONLY use oats that come from dedicated fields (not contaminated by those evil grains). And I've read some stuff that says you should only eat oats after you've been off gluten for a while and healed up. Something about oats, they don't have gluten but their genetic composition is slightly similar to wheat. Or something like that. I don't know. I could be wrong there. In other good baking news: I bought a Namaste gluten free spice cake mix. Ten thumbs up from everyone here (two per person, not ten, we don't have fifty thumbs collectively). A little denser than regular cake but good still. Almost brownie like but not quite. Makes me think their brownie and blondie mixes must be pretty good. They also don't have a hundred ingredients like a regular cake mix. Only the basic stuff so it's probably healthier.

The other good news is my recurring dream with the words "gluten free" floating around freely has stopped. I was probably mumbling "gluten free" in my sleep. Then there was the worst dream. Gluten Free and Glen Beck. It must have been some sort of "GL" theme. Very disturbing. I really want to go order pizza now. (Nothing to do with my weird dreams, I just don't want to cook dinner.) No? Then tostadas it is. I wish I would have remembered the guacamole.

Answers

I knew I wasn't crazy! Or paranoid. Or overreactive. Is that a word? This has been a while coming. Let me explain a little. It's been at least a couple of years, maybe more like three. We began to notice that one of my kids was slowing way down on her growth. She started out at a solid average height, some even said slightly above average. Then we noticed the shorter kids were catching up with her. Then they were passing her. Did I need to worry? Some said, well kids grow at different rates, she'll grow when her body is ready. No, it just didn't feel right. I know my being 5'9" and Brent being 6' tall is no guarantee of tall children. I don't need tall children. Although the pediatrician did do that prediction thing when she was 2 1/2 and predicted 5'8". But I also know you can't believe everything a doctor says. Especially when she has more than a dozen years to be proven wrong. But come on, I come from tall people. We don't do short. Brent's got mostly tall people in his family too. But maybe she takes after her grandma? Well sure, nothing wrong with that. But it just didn't feel right. So we waited for the growth spurt some said would happen. There was an inch here and there but it didn't seem right. So I took her to the doctor. This was Spring of '09. She was a little concerned. She ordered blood tests and x-rays. Everything was pretty okay. The x-rays showed her bone age was on the young side. That meant she would probably finish growing later than average. A late bloomer. So we moved forward. She grew almost two inches that years! But it looked like everyone else grew four.

I kept saying, well everything must be okay. She's just taking her time. Then why is she still throwing up? Did I not mention the recurring vomiting? But the doctor didn't seem overly concerned and her health seemed fine in general, besides the throwing up, so I tried a wait and see approach. This summer I took her back to the doctor for some immunizations. The doctor was now concerned about her weight. More blood tests were administered. Symptoms were beginning to be added on to this mystery: anemia, vitamin D deficiency. She wasn't absorbing nutrients properly. That would explain why she wasn't growing. I looked for answers on the internet. The doctor prescribed vitamins and ordered more blood tests. Finally, she contacted a pediatric G.I. specialist. So this past Tuesday we went into the hospital and she had an endoscopy. Celiac Disease. You know, the no gluten disease. We finally had an answer. My daughter is happy to have answers. Yes, she has to give up all gluten containing foods (anything with wheat, barley or rye). Forever. We may all try this new diet too. It runs in families and maybe in general it will get us eating more healthy. Get us off so much processed foods. But the best thing is we know what the problem is. We know what we need to do. It's going to be a big change. But it's nothing super scary. We are grateful for that. I love this girl, I'm so happy to know how to help her now. We finally have our answers.

Math Problems

Here is the problem with math. At least for those who stink at doing it. The material is covered too fast and most math teachers, while being very good at doing math, are not very good at explaining math. So you go through class, barely comprehending from week to week. Then you either bomb the class and have to retake it or you scrape by and are not adequately prepared for the next class and the whole thing starts over again. There is rarely a set up for success in these situations. Unless you are blessed with one of those rare teachers who are good at math and good at explaining math to the mathily challenged. I miss you Patty Hayes! (quite possibly one of those rare teachers)

Another First Day Of School

The new school year has come again. Isabella had her first day of Jr. High-7th grade. Zoe is now in 5th and Noah is in 2nd. They're growing up too fast, dang it! They all had a good first week and no one cried or had any horror stories. Success!

Zoe's New Room

Remember this?

So I finally finished Zoe's room redo. Now I can retire my paintbrush again for a good long time.

Before it was Isabella's and Zoe's room. I loved the pink room. I believe everyone should have a pink room at one time or another. If I was single and I had enough space I would have a pink room just for fun. Okay, I think I may have liked the pink room more than the girls did!

But time marches on and Isabella has her own room now and Zoe has a new and improved room of the purple variety:

I Cut My Hair Again

Did it myself. Cutting my own hair is always a sure sign that something is a little off for me this month. Some sort of expression of self loathing at the moment. That and it needed it RIGHT THEN and where am I going to find someone to cut my hair on a Sunday night? And no I couldn't wait until Monday morning when I had nothing specific going on. I shouldn't even mention this because now the few people from my neighborhood who read this blog are going to see me out and about or at church or one of my twenty trips to walmart each week and they will know I did this to myself. Instead of thinking, "That poor woman, she  really got a butcher job there." And now I will have to keep my self haircut for the next month. I can't possibly go to a salon for a month.  I have to let it grow out a little and blend in so I don' have to go in there, hang my head and shamefully admit I did this to myself. Let the punishment fit the crime I guess. Plus I'd have to get shaved bald if I were to go any shorter. Maybe I can pull off bald though?

One More

A fun part of the Ben Folds concert last month. I found it on youtube so it's not me or Brent you hear singing up close (wouldn't let anyone hear that.)

A Sink In The Woods, You Say?

Insanity is washing your hair at 5:30 in the morning in a dirty shallow sink in the woods with ice cold water and a bar of soap. It was Dove soap though-with 1/4 moisturizing cream. So it worked pretty well.

Yes, it was time for the annual family camping trip. I can't sleep camping. I wake up fifty times hearing sounds in the woods, usually bears I'm certain. However, the first night I, we all, slept great in our tent. I think it was because conditions were optimal. I went to bed at a proper time (midnight, usually it's to early). The air mattress was inflated properly. I didn't sleep on the wrong side of Brent as I usually do camping (I usually take the side closest to the kids which isn't the normal side at home). I had plenty of blankets so I didn't have to wake up from dreams of sleeping in a meat locker sandwiched between two large slabs of frozen beef. So it all worked out amazingly well the first night. The second night was another story. This time I was too hot and nearby campers had a small child that kept howling in the night. At five I was hot, sticky, grubby, tired of lying awake, and felt it was probably the ideal time to go get my self clean with a towel and a bar of soap in the restroom (this campground is awesome for it's flushing toilets and sink with running water). So that is how I ended up washing my hair with a bar of soap at 5:30 in the morning. I did because I was there, the soap was there, the sink was there. That is all. Oh, and the towel was there, of course.

Other than that it all went great and we had a great time. Brent's mom, Cathy, joined us in her little RV so that was new and fun. We saw a moose, or moosette rather. And then we saw her again, making her way through the campground. Missy the Moose, we named her. We took a vote and everyone said Aye, in favor of Missy. Some said Missy wasn't a very Moosey name but they didn't offer any alternative suggestions so Missy the Moose it was. We hiked, played in the shallow part of the creek, the kids were happy 90% of the time, it didn't rain like the weather said it likely would. Good times at campout 'oh-ten!

Oh, Man!

I made a stop at Victoria's Secret a while back. I'm married, I'm an adult, and this wouldn't be announcement worthy. But I have a reason here. I paid with my credit card and I DO NOT recall just giving them my address. So yesterday I get a mailer addressed to our address with the name Cynthia and no "S" like my last name should have. First of all, of course, my mind automatically drifts to what it would be like if I was actually named Cynthia with no "S" at the end of my last name...Hmmm...what would I be like? Would I be different? Mysterious?

Digressing here. So now I'm on Victoria's Secret's list. I know what it's like to be on their list. Back in the early '90s, before I was married, I bought some clothes from a catalog of theirs that showed up at my dad's house addressed to my step mom. A cute, long sweatshirt and leggings to go with it. Incidentally, a roommate of mine later stole the sweatshirt and I saw her wearing it around the house. I was stunned, who steals another persons clothes and then wears them in front of them? So I never said anything to her (she also owned the house, maybe she would evict me for calling her a thief?) I actually ordered the sweatshirt again. I know, what a chump. Weird story. Not nearly as weird as the time I made all the power go out in Magna, Utah though. That's a story for another day.

Anyway, back to being on their list. I then received their catalog at least once a month for the next six years or so. Finally, when half a decade went by without ordering anything they removed me from their list. I also had heard something about them streamlining their mailing list to weed out the pervs who weren't ordering stuff. So I guess I didn't make the cut. Not that I'm a perv or anything. So now I'm going to be receiving their mailings with emaciated teenagers posing in their underwear, showing off their fake lips and fake other things. Coming to my mailbox where my children occasionally like to get the mail. I'm gonna have to send some emails, make some calls I guess. Oh, man!

Belated Anniversary Weekend

Man, I miss the days when I could write a good blog. Where have you gone, inspiration? Well back in May, Brent and I celebrated fifteen years of marriage. Crazy, I know. At the time we were busy with end of the school year stuff and such and we didn't have any money to go on a proper trip to celebrate since we'd just gone to California with the kids a few weeks prior, thus we didn't do much. So we arranged to go on a weekend getaway this past weekend. The kids went to spend some quality time with Grandpa Richard and Grandma Karen. (Thanks guys!) I guess Noah entertained himself and anyone else he could when he went to church with them. He decided to spend his time staring down everyone he could who was sitting up on the stand in front of everyone. I guess he got a twelve year old boy who was going to give a talk to start laughing, and the Stake President came down and shook his hand after the meeting closed. That's my boy.

Anyway, we weren't sure what to do for our weekend getaway until we accidentally stumbled upon news that Ben Folds would be performing with the Utah Symphony at Deer Valley Resort. After we found out it was kind of like, duh! Cause I'm like Ben Folds's biggest fan and all. So we headed to Park City and we decided we would also try our hand at mountain biking at Deer Valley. We rented our bikes and got our helmets and water bottles and rode two chair lifts up to the top (near the top?). There I received confirmation that once again I stink at all athletic endeavors. I cannot help it that I am tall and awkward and clumsy. (I probably tripped on my way out of the womb.) So I slipped and fell and walked my way down the mountain path, yelling out at certain points, "This Sucks!" Twenty minutes into biking on the easiest course we could find, I was resigned to walking my bike down the mountain for the next couple of hours. But then the path got a little less steep, a little less rocky and I traded bikes with Brent (because as a tall, awkward clumsy person I am a magnet for faulty equipment rentals) and I got used to the whole operation just a bit. We made it down the first trail, much slower than Brent would have without me holding him back, and I only fell once and I only almost started crying once. Not bad. Then we made our way down the second half and were on a path that was even easier than the last and even though it sucked for a while it was a lot of fun.

As a side note I'd like to point out to all of those bikers we had to pull over for and let pass us by that maybe if you're going to go out and buy the fancy, shiny mountain biker outfit with all the fancy, shiny gear, that maybe you shouldn't be on the easy, beginner course. And if you need to be on the beginner course then maybe you should hold off on the fancy, shiny outfits and gear until you're ready for the intermediate course. Just an idea.

So we conquered the mountain and cleaned up and got lunch and headed out to stand in line for the concert at around 4:00. I figured if we were going to sit in the non-reserved section on the grass then we better get a good spot up front cause I wasn't going to be stuck in the binoculars section with no binoculars. So I figured the best plan would be to show up three and a half hours before the concert started and sit in the 95 degree heat for three and a half hours. And that is what we did. It actually wasn't too bad, we brought water and games and even an umbrella and got a good spot about four rows of blankets back. The concert was great, of course. The symphony did a great job backing up Ben Folds. Fun, fun, fun. The funny part is that a lot of the people attending this concert were season ticket holders for the Utah Symphony at Deer Valley, many of whom are in their fifties and older. Possibly, some were a little surprised to be at rock concert. The people sitting next to us fell into this category. They were sitting there with their picnic basket and their wine (sophisticated folk) and we over heard one say it was the most entertaining concert he'd ever been to for someone he'd never heard of before.  So who is this Ben Folds anyway? You may be asking. Because many haven't heard of him. Well the perfect combination of piano genius and obnoxious. It's fun music.


This isn't from the concert we were at. I couldn't find any good footage from our concert. Ignore the stupid advertisement at the end.

Great weekend and an awesome way to celebrate fifteen years of happy times together. Looking forward to the next fifteen!

Let's Start Here...

I guess I've been taking some sort of blogging vacation. Well, it is summer. It has been busy. I spent the month of June working like crazy to get projects around the house done. You should have seen the pile of junk I took to the D.I. (a store like Goodwill run by my church). When I was done I had an organized storage closet in the basement that was a thing of pure beauty. I also once again had a walk in closet that I could actually WALK INTO. No longer do I trip and break things when I try to find some pants to wear. I found those sneaky little extension cords that are always hiding out, never to be found when you need them. I found things that were needed for other projects I was working on that I didn't even know I needed yet!

We also had a broken dryer so I spent some quality time either dragging baskets full of wet laundry to the laundromat or hauling it all to the backyard pioneer style and hanging it up wherever I could find a spot. I love crunchy laundry. Thankfully a dryer-less home is once again nowhere to be found here.

The best part of my project list was finally getting Isabella's new room done. She'd been wanting her own room for a while so I agreed she could have the guest room this summer. So we decided to redo the whole room. That led to deciding to redo Zoe's room too and some minor changes in Noah's room as well so he wouldn't feel left out.

                                            Before: Rarely used Guest Room

                                                               and...

After: A really cool, fun room for a soon to be teenager! She's still got plenty of room to add her own posters and what not above her bed there. She picked the bedding and we picked the paint together. (I'm trying to get over my control issues here.) I love the molding and the white paint at the top, it makes the low ceiling feel higher, I've done this in all the kids' rooms now. I love the desk! $25 from Ikea! Funny thing, though not surprising, she actually misses Zoe a little. Actually she doesn't anymore, we moved Zoe's bed in there the other night until I finish painting her room. Which I've admittedly started to get a little lazy on but it will be done before summer is over, hopefully before July is over!

                                            Now, Noah...

 

                                           Noah's Room Before
                                                                             
                                           and...

 Noah's Room After! Not a huge change, got some things moved around, got a bigger table and got the girl's bunk bed. I figure someone should enjoy the bunk bed while he is still young enough to have fun with it. What boy doesn't want to sleep on top of a bunk bed? (And the ceiling is low enough that he can't possibly comfortably try to jump off the bed. :) 

These Kids of Mine

It's been one of those weeks where you just look back and think, Dang I love those kids!

First of all, Noah. Noah uses his foot as a break for his bike. His bike has a couple of perfectly functional breaks so I cannot be blamed for this. Unlike so many other traumas in my children's lives. This time he was unfortunately wearing his flipflops and it all ended in bloody hysterics and Noah later hobbling around like a spazy old man.

                               Big bandaged toe there on the left foot

Zoe had her end of year piano recital. She struggled and it was touch and go there for a minute but she didn't quit and she ended up doing quite well. She was a trooper and I was a proud mama.

Isabella graduated from elementary school! I can't believe she is off to Jr. High in the fall. She has worked so hard and I'm so proud of her.

                                           First day of kindergarten

Last day of sixth grade and elementary school. Ready for Jr. High. Help us all!                                               

That's All

I've thought about this long and hard since my birthday a couple of weeks ago and I've come to one plausible conclusion: 39 can suck it. *dot dot dot* Stay Tuned.

Vacation

Last week we went here:

And here:

Oh, and we saw a lot of this:

Isn't that just a beautiful picture?

Yes it was time for another vacation not to Arizona (by the way, Arizona, I think it's your turn to come here) and we decided to see California, and as much as we could of it in one week. So we headed to San Francisco first. I don't know why, but every time I head anywhere in the Northwest I just feel at home. (Is San Francisco considered part of the Northwest?) Maybe I do know why a little. Maybe because the coast is so beautiful up north and the architecture is great, the people seem so nice and laid back, yellow isn't the primary landscape color, environmentalism isn't a dirty word. (I could go on and on about how impressed I was with the environmental measures taken in the hotels in San Francisco and Cambria and how San Francisco must be the Prius capital of America.) I've just had this thing for the Northwest since my first trip to Seattle in the early '90s. Maybe someday...

So we had a good time exploring San Francisco for a couple of days. The girls decided somewhere in western Nevada that the car game they would play would be Count the Obama bumper stickers. So they kept that up all through San Francicso and down to Los Angeles. Apparently San Francisco is more Obama friendly territory than in these parts. Ha ha. The final count was 17. We took a boat tour around the bay and the kids were all very disappointed we weren't going to take the tour of Alcatraz. I should have listened to Brent I guess. Here are some more pictures of the first leg of the trip. Too bad I still don't know how to put pictures on here in a better way:

                                                                                 Alcatraz



After San Francisco we drove down the coast and stopped in San Simeon to see the Heart Castle:



We also ran into a beach full of elephant seals. There were hundreds of them hanging out on this beach where they are protected.

Next came Southern California. We are now well acquainted with the infamous traffic of Los Angeles after three hours of freeway driving and three more through the city while trying to see the sights. But it was still a great time. Disneyland lived up to it's reputation for the kids, we all had a great couple of days there and we are even considering returning some day. Not bad for people who aren't die hard Disney people. It was a great week away with the family. Now if we could somehow move the east coast a little further west so we could explore that region next time around.

A few more pics (okay a lot more):