Is it over yet?

This is the never ending week of stress or stuff or both. I am so looking forward to a nice tropical vacation with my spouse and a good book. Unfortunately nothing like that is on the horizon.

Tuesday was Lily's preschool party. They had a great time. We went to Chuck E. Cheese. Yum. It isn't about the parents right? It was a fun year for the kids and I hope they enjoyed it. Tuesday night was cub scouts and boy scouts. Fun scheduling pick ups and drop offs.

Wednesday Nana came with my dad. It is great to have Nana here. She is very calming. The kids have loved every minute of it and we are loving her spoiling all of us. My dad was here to help with arbitration, which was today. What a nightmare that was, but it is out of my hands now and I really just am glad. Hopefully we can move past this accident that happened two years ago. I was really happy my dad was able to help out with everything.

Wednesday night I went to Super Science Night and the school with Adam. We learned about sound vibrations, water filtering, some little shrimp and sand that repels water. Adam had fun. I am really burned out on school functions right now.

Next up...Recital and closing ceremonies for baseball

What a weekend

Well the weekend has come and gone and is not quite long enough to satisfy me. The weather is so temperamental it is driving me crazy. Here is a look at our week in review.

Thursday I had to take the jeep in for an oil change and found out something was wrong when the coolant was leaking out. Yippie. So Thursday and Friday were spent dealing with that. This is a warning for you, please do not by any Jeep cars unless you plan on keeping them for less than 50,000 miles. It is just to stressful and expensive. We thought the problem was fixed Friday night, but it wasn't so now the car needs to go back in on Monday. oh yea. The green stuff in the picture is not supposed to be there.

Friday I went on a field trip with Adam's class. We went to the zoo. Lily was able to come with us. It was fun. We haven't been to the zoo in a long time and they have made some really great changes. The hill up to the polar bears is still dreadful, especially when pushing a stroller, but we made it to the top. We only managed to get lost once.

Friday night we had Ranch Round Up at school. The kids loved the Inflatable's Zone. We just let them run wild in that for a couple hours. The kids played games and we had dinner. I hope the school made a lot of money.









Saturday we had Noah's playoff game. They were winning until the very end. I can't say that I am terribly sad that they lost, but the boys were. They had a great season and Noah had 3 outs just in this game. We had the team party right afterwards at the park. Now we are all done. YIPPIE! Damon also put in more new lights in the kitchen. I am so happy about that. Oh, and I found out my next door neighbors are painting their house a sage green which is the color we wanted to paint this one. Rargh!



Right after the party we went to the boy scout fundraiser at church. It was a spaghetti dinner. Damon was in charge of the decor (which means I was) and some of the entertainment. The boys did the Haka and did a pretty great job. They didn't scare any of us, they aren't to fierce, but their dancing wasn't bad. The kids enjoyed seeing their friends and I enjoyed not having to cook for the 2nd night in a row.



After we got home I got the kids in bed and turned on the tv. Titanic had just started and it's been about 10 years since I have seen that movie. Needless to say by about 12:30 am I wished I had those 3 hours back to get some sleep. It would be a sad movie in any case, but it is even sadder because it's based on the truth. Speaking of movies if you haven't seen the trailer for New Moon go see it. It looks great. I am so glad they did away with the blue film cover. That was driving me nuts.

Next up for this week... mother in law coming (good because we love her, bad because I have to clean really well) arbitration and the piano recital.

Just What the House Needs

We had a free Saturday. Can you believe that? A free Saturday and with the bad weather no yard work could be done. So what does Damon decide to do? He decides to put another hole in our house. We have had these ugly ceiling fans that we think were put in to cover up the ugly box lighting the house used to have. We are putting in recessed lighting and some hanging lights. This one only lasted a day and after he figured out the wiring the hole disappeared real quick. Of course since my kitchen was destroyed all day long dinner was prepared by Carl's Jr. We are quite happy with the results. (the picture is of Damon up in the attic)

Thanks Damon for working so hard all day.

You did great!

Also, Noah spent the weekend working on a diorama. He doesn't understand why I won't do his work for him when all of his other friends parents do most of the work for them. Well, I believe he should do his own work with very little help from us. Here is what he came up with. It is a scene from one of the Artemis Fowl books. He did a pretty good job all on his own.

Saying Goodbye yet again

Getting out of Dodge!

I am so tired of people I really enjoy being around leaving San Diego. It almost makes me not want to meet anyone new. Then again, one might miss learning something from the someone they met.

My dear friend Wendy is moving to a colder place, Colorado. She was only here while her husband was deployed (for 13 months. I would have never survived Damon being gone for that long). We would walked the lake together, did preschool together with our 3 year olds and over the past year I have gained a good friend. She will be missed.

We had a fun girls night out to Applebee's. We ordered a Mile High cake in here honor as well as sang random John Denver songs. Again, I really hope this is the last farewell party I have to attend. Erika and Dianne, you are not allowed to leave!

Lily's class had a field trip to Cold Stone on Thursday. You know you are in for a great day when you can eat a ton of ice cream before 11am. We stopped by a park first and saw some turtles and ducks. One of the turtles was stuck in this concrete areas and couldn't climb the stairs. After watching it struggle and then flip over on its back I picked it up and carried it over to the grass. I have never seen a turtle move so fast towards water.

Memorial Day Madness

Memorial Day wasn't actually mad, but we had tons of fun. We drove up Sunday after church to Mortensen Manor. My sister made tacos just for Damon. He was so happy. The kids were all excited to see their cousins. We had an enjoyable dinner and dessert followed by a 3 mile walk.

The next morning Damon thought he had died and gone to heaven when he woke up to my sister making crepes. Life can't get better than that. After breakfast Damon headed off to the cemetery and to visit an old friend and the kids and I and their uncle headed off to the park.

After the park and lunch we went swimming. This was our kids first venture back into the water since last summer. Lily has forgotten everything she learned last year and Adam can stay up, but does look an awful lot like he is drowning. We will all be back in swim lessons again soon. The water and weather were nice. We headed over to Aunt Kathy's house to gather with all the Horspool's for more swimming and a BBQ. The food was great the kids loved the water slide and spa and the parents all loved catching up.

On our way home we stopped by a store that we used to shop at in Portland. The chain has been slowly moving South, but hasn't made its way down to San Diego yet. The store's name is Winco. We stopped and bought our most favorite ice cream. The store was laid out exactly how the store in Oregon is laid out so it was so easy to find everything. The prices are still so cheap that I ended up buying a little more than ice cream. I was so excited. It felt like Christmas.

We made it home and the kids slept very soundly. Now if only every day could be this fun

Oh My Ears!

Noah had a recorder concert at school on Wednesday night. I was a bit concerned about our ears after hearing 120 3rd graders play the recorder together. We were all pleasantly surprised when they actually did a really good job. Enjoy listening.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the results of the Idol finale. The show was great and I didn't feel like I wasted 2 hours of my night because I was reading a book most of the time. Yea Kris. We couldn't be happier. I was so happily surprised by the voting. As much as Cara has annoyed me all season as a judge I admired her for getting up and singing. She's pretty good. My favorite Kris song "Heartless."

Adam's last T-ball game was tonight! Yea! We were so proud of the improvement he has made over the season and are happy to be moving on from T-ball forever. Time for machine pitch. Yippie.

The piano recital is looming over my head as well as my arbitration date. Damon's mom is coming in a few weeks to rescue me during that time and I couldn't be more excited about it. The kids are too. They count down every morning the days until Nana comes. It's cute.

Good News! Only 8.5 weeks of school left. Yippie!

Garden update: looks like everything is going to survive except the onions. We will try again next growing season.

Sand and more Sand

I should be doing "chores" right now, or working on preschool lessons for tomorrow, but I don't feel like it.

The boys went camping over the weekend. They came back so sandy. Noah's white socks were sand colored and their shoes weren't any better. They had a good time. I wish I had more pictures from the trip. They were at this place called Fiesta Island which is in Mission Bay, near Sea World.

After a productive Saturday of chores and baseball games Damon's cousin called us and told us that he and his family were down at La Jolla Shores. So we abandoned the rest of our plans and met them down there. It was cloudy and cool (which was completely opposite at our house), but we had a great time. The older boys played paddle ball and football. I didn't put the kids in their suits and I should have. They all ended up really wet. Luckily I had the insight to bring a change of warmer clothes and so they put those on for the ride home. It was a nice break from the normal activities for a Saturday. There is more sand in my car and garage than I care to think about but I guess that is what you get for living in SanD iego.