Holiday performance at school

The kids school put on a little show for us. It was really fun to see. The sound system sucked.

Halloween

I know, I know, it is November 15th already, stop talking about Halloween. Maybe the last two weeks were a little hairy, you know with my husband taking a long sailing trip with my best friends, or the kids and I leaving the country for a few days. Never mind my computer RAM died and then AT&T had a little troubles with the DSL lines. Sometimes I feel like Pigpen from Peanuts, with just these swirls of problems going around me at all times.

This picture is from the Baja Ha Ha pre race party. Since it was 3 days before Halloween we decided to dress up. Debbie bought these outfits 6 months ago (she is such a planner)! All I can say about the costume is, thank God for tennis skirt that added about 3 inches to that short little thing.

Here are the boys on the porch waiting to start trick or treating. Robert had left his mask at a carnival earlier in the day so we improvised on the makeup. Hollywood here I come. For the first time, Halloween came before we moved our clocks back from Daylight savings time so we starting begging for candy before it was dark. I liked that. Now that the boys are older we went to many more houses. I liked that too. It is fun to chat with my neighbors. I should really do more of that. We were really to go up to the next block for more treats when a neighbor looked in their buckets and said "woah, those are really full". And lordy were they. Completely up to the top. So that ended the evening.

The school had this really dumb idea that the kids couldn't come to school in their costumes on Halloween. They were allowed to dress in Orange and black "spirit day". So I got a little carried away with spirit and colored their hairs too.

Christmas Photo

There are only a few things I really look forward to with the holidays. One is our annual family photo. I really enjoy having a great family photo to send out to friends and family as our Christmas Card and I really like having all of them in chronological order up on my wall so I can look at how we have grown and changed. I do not like choosing a date for said picture and I do not like forcing my kids to dress nice, look at the camera, smile, etc.

I think I might have hit the jackpot this year. As we were waiting for crew to arrive this morning for my friends departure my dad was taking random pictures. I think I've found our Christmas card photo with out all the hassles. Now, it isn't perfect, it will need some photoshop, it will need to fix my blinking eyes. But I have to admit that there has been a little photoshop in the last few years of Christmas cards too.

Oh, what's that you say, you want to see the yearly photos? Well, I guess I can dig deep into my 180 gig drive and find them.

Pre-Halloween

Halloween is going to be a bit different this year. Carson is leaving on the 29th to sail with our friends down to Cabo San Lucas. I will be trick or treating alone. I think we have always had Deb and Rich and kids to walked the neighborhood with, so not only am I losing my husband, I'm losing my friends too on Halloween.

We had several costume parties to go to this weekend. The pictures above are for a party for those racing to Cabo. Debbie bought us matching costumes about 6 months ago. They worked out great, although a tad too short for my liking. And yes, those are long pink eyelashes I'm sportin'.

Our Friends are leaving

Our very best friends over the last 8 years or so are leaving San Diego :( They are taking their sailboat and heading south. They are joining a 120 other boats leaving Monday morning.

Last Friday night, we treated them to some great sushi and champane and sake. Carson and I thought they should have one last fancy meal before they are left to having to catch their own sushi. We went to The Pearl. A brand new restaurant in Del Mar. The service was great, the selection overwhelming and the food was to die for.

They served the sake in frozen green bamboo and the glasses were made of bamboo too.

The Airshow

The family went to the annual air show this weekend. My boys love to go the the airshow so much that it is the perfect dangling carrot for about a week before the event. There were no struggles with homework this week because they were required to have their homework done prior to going.

My husband's favorite part of the air show is actually watching the show. My boys just like climbing in and out of different airplanes, helocopters, and armored tanks. And I like just walking around feeling the energy and the patriotism. So here are a few pictures from the weekend.

CEC = Pick up joint

So many bloggers write about really interesting things that happen in their life. Not many events in my life are blogging worthy. But Saturday I had a very unusual interaction that is worth blogging about.

My 7 year old was invited to a beach birthday party and at the last minute it started raining and the back up place was Chuck E Cheese. I had already RSVPed to the beach and couldn't back out just because I hate CEC. I can think of no worse torture than Chuck E Cheese on a rainy Saturday afternoon but off we went. I do believe I get another star sticker on my mommy chart.

The place was absolutely packed with screaming kids and was so loud I can't believe there won't be permanent damage. I'm madly putting the last of the CEC tokens in a machine when a nice looking man stand beside me asking me if I think I'll win lots of tokens. I said the first thing that crossed my mind "I hope not, I'm trying to get rid of these so we can get out of this noisy place." He laughed told me he was here with his neice then asked me if I can take a compliment. Oh boy, not only can I take a compliment but I could really use one or ten so I said sure. He took a step back, eyed me up and down and said "You are a very attractive lady". Uh, what does one say to that! "Thanks!" And we soon parted ways. Three days later I'm still on cloud 9.

School has Started

School started 2 weeks ago. I have so much to write about, so many emotions to sort out. I've started writing this post at least 3 times, maybe I'll finish it this time.

Both my boys are now in school full time. Both my boys are taking the bus. Both my boys are learning spanish. Most of me is relived, excited, and happy. But part of me is thinking "what now?". I've reached my short term goal with them and things are changing, what now? If I keep writing in this direction I'm going to have to move this over to my private journal so let's switch gears.

Robert was so excited to start his first day of school. He came bouncing down the stairs completely dressed in a school spirit shirt and his backpack on his back. He was raring to go when we waited an extra 15 minutes to get on a very late bus. I was so proud of my little man. By 11am the hot day, only spanish being spoken, and a whole hell of a lot of rules, Robert had completely changed his mind about school. "I don't like this school" "I want to go to Nico's school" "I don't understand what they are saying" etc.

So over the course of the next 5 days I listened to protests about school. I put on my brave mommy face and explained that school would get easier, that school is his obligation just like daddy has work obligations, that he needs to reach out and make new friends, and that I love him very much. None of that seemed to work.

And on the 6th day of school (also his older brothers birthday) he had a totally and complete meltdown. Sobbing and clinging and pulling at every heart string I have. I had run out of great mommy tricks and at my wits end too. I bargained that if he was brave for 3 consecutive days he could go to Toys R Us for a toy. And that was that. Thank you God for that bit of wisdom.

Cute Font!!

Using images from Flickr, Try your name!

Put down the booze and bon bons!

I'm afraid I got a little carried away on Debbie's blog. You know, sometimes I just get into very chatty moods and there's no one to chat with. So I ramble and ramble and hope that someone will think I'm as funny as I find myself. I'm just sitting here laughing at how weird I am.

Sick sick sick

Wouldn't you know, the day before we leave for vacation and a kid is sick. Actually it is something we joke about often, but usually it is me. I'm almost always sick as a vacation starts. Last week Robert ran a high fever for 2 days. A few days back I felt lousy and have since diagnosed myself as having Hand, Foot, and Mouth virus. Blisters are still sore. And now my eldest child is running a fever.

We can't possibly delay or cancel our trip at this point, there is just too much momentum. I will just tuck him into his quarter berth and give him lots of love and tylenol.

August Garden

Is it just me or does gardening in August suck? Everything is crispy and on the verge of death. I have no flowers that are blooming and nothing on the horizon that I should be tending too, just pulling out dead stuff. And it is too hot to spend a long time out there without shade. A few years back I made a concerted effort to place late blooming flowers only to be very disappointed. This year is particularly bad because summer came early and has stayed on throughout the season (but I'm not complaining about that!).

Here are some pictures from earlier this spring. I had grand plans of maintaining a gardening blog. I enjoy reading gardening blogs but I don't know of any in Southern California and we do grow things different out here. I wonder if I did blog if things would be different.

handful of things on my minds

I've been updating Debbie's blog for the last few days. I seem to have more to say on her blog than mine, I wonder why that is. Her blog is acting funny too, I can't get my most recent post to show up by just clicking over to her blog, I have to force the post to appear by clicking on the archive button. I wonder how I screwed that one up. It is funny because the post that keeps appearing is one I'm not proud of, and the 2 posts after it, I love, but they don't show. I really want to bury the bad one.

We are leaving for Catalina in 3 days. I'm in charge of provisioning the boat and I'm trying to get it done early so I'm not totally stressing out at the last minute. Still some things have to be last minute like bread and fruit.

The kids are in VBS in the mornings all week. It is the perfect time to get things done. I have so many things to do, it is all just swimming around my head. Focus, focus.

We went to a concert in the park last night and had some cute pictures taken of Carson and I dancing with Robert. Of course, not with my camera, so I will have to wait patiently for the pictures to arrive.

Preparing for a trip to Catalina

We are taking our boat to Catalina for a 10 day vacation. This is a very familiar trip for many boat owners in Southern California, but not us, it is a brand new adventure. We are going with 3 other couples that we will share meals with, and are expecting to see many more friends when we arrive.

My husband has been working relentlessly on preparing the boat for the trip. This was no small undertaking for our old boat.

My memories of Catalina Island are all good but limited although I was there probably a dozon times as a child. I spent 5 or six summers at CIMI (Catalina Island Marine Institute), I went to girl scout camp at White's Landing (now a boy scout camp), and did several backpacking adventures.

So my friend is going cruising

I don't know about you but I'm still not getting the whole picture on this adventure SV Oasis is going on. Yes, yes, I understand they are doing the Baja Ha Ha race from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas, but then what? I hear them talking about different locations and different ports, but it doesn't compute for me. So here's a few maps and hopefully it will start to make more sense to me and maybe you too.

So the Ha Ha race starts way up in the top left corner and goes down that funny finger thing and ends at the tip (or Cabo) of Baja California. Oasis has reservations during the Christmas holiday in Puerto Vallarta. This leaves a few weeks of unplanned (gasp!) time. Last I heard they were planning on going up Gulf of California a bit. After New Years they are leaving Puerto Vallarta and going further south. How much, you asked? I've asked the same and the response is a shrug and "Ecuador". So then we have to leave the map at the top and travel to the next map of Central America. Okay, I'll admit I've never really looked at the west coast of Central America before. Looks bumpy and long. No, but really, it looks like an amazing adventure.

And just when you think I'm done posting maps, glance up and notice that Ecuador hasn't made it on our little map journey. Can you believe it took 3 maps to do this silly post? Can you believe that I'm so lazy I couldn't find just one map to do it? Oh, you can, well, okay. So here is my last map of the day:

Whew, we made it all the way to Ecuador, dang it is pretty far down too.
Hopefully Debbie will get a better map and draw all over it so we can see her plan.

Laundry

This morning I did laundry in a different an amusing way. Not amusing Like PW, but amusing none this less, especially for this San Diego city girl.

My younger son has camp at Sea World this week and part of going to Sea World camp is wearing the same yellow camp shirt each of the 5 days of camp. Monday was fine, new and clean shirt, Tuesday was fine because he only wore it during camp and it still looked clean. But now for Weds. I thought it was high time for a mid week wash.

Being the early bird I am, I woke at 6 and started the laundry. At 6:15 the laundry starts beeping at me, and displaying some very strange code on the "communication screen". I try my best to think it is just early morning grumps and reset the washing machine. At 7am I check on the machine to see that, yes indeed, there is a problem and the machine will not in fact launder clothes this morning.

What, what's that you say, you want to skim ahead to the punch line, well okay. The end result was me driving frantically to Sea World with the wet shirt on my arm and arm out the window. I'm dodging traffic, not only because I'm late but also because shirts dry faster at 40 mph than at 25 mph.

So, yup, I wasn't waving my yellow flag at you this morning, just doing my laundry.

Dutch Shoe Marathon

I just returned home from the start of the Dutch Shoe Marathon. This one design race is sponsored by San Diego Yacht club and had 283 participants in 4 classes. The Sabot has long been the standard for young sailors and is often considered the hardest to sail. Its bathtub like shape does not lend its self towards forward movement and often is pushed sideways by the wind. This race is challenging for young and old alike.

The racers were nervous this morning. Boat parts were being repaired and new parts purchased. Race instructions into Ziplocs and taped down. The coaches were talking about tides, currents and wind directions. And moms were applying sunscreen and packing snacks. All contributed to the bustle of energy on the docks this morning. The preparations were successful and the participants crossed the start line with ambitious goals. It was quite a site; 200 little boats with white sails moving down the harbor like leaf ants in the jungle.

What, what’s that I hear? You want to see pictures of my kids again? Well, okay.