Father's day weekend

We spent father's day weekend in Nevada at Lake Mead with my niece, Erica and her family. It was a great weekend out on the boat. The kids just love going out with Erica, Ryan and the kids and look forward to summer and going on the boat.

Last year Presley, was just five months old and could not really enjoy our time at the lake, but this year she clearly has the relaxing in the sun thing down. I wish I could pull off that belly in my bathing suit!

Luke clearly knows how to relax also. He is turning 4 this summer and got to take his first ride being pulled behind the boat on the banana. We did not get any pictures of it since Erica and I were on the banana with him, Scott was on flag and Presley duty and Ryan was our driver. He loved it though and I see many adventures in this boy's future.

Of course, Riley, will be keeping up with Luke in that department as she still sits in the front of the boat yelling "faster". I have nicknamed her "full throttle Riley".

All in all it was a great weekend and we wish we could do it every weekend!

End of year awards!

 

I'm a little behind on my blogging, but I wanted to share this picture of Riley getting her end of the school year awards. She had a great year, getting straight A's the entire year and she received a citizenship award, math, writing and scholastic achievment. Good job Riley!
Not to be outdone by his sister, Zachary also achieved straight A's (excluding that B in P.E.) in all honors classes at his Jr. High. Good job Zachary!

Shoe shopping

We went shoe shopping yesterday since Zachary needed some new shoes before we went to Lake Mead next weekend. As we were picking out shoes we ended up in the men's section instead of the boys section. This was a first, this child's feet grew overnight. He ended up getting men's size 6 1/2-7 shoes. His feet are now bigger than mine!
I know it sounds so cliche, but really WHERE DID THE TIME GO? It seems like just yesterday that I was taking him to mommy and me playschool and he was wearing his Winnie the Pooh halloween costume. Now I am buying him shoes from the men's department. Only 4 1/2 more years and he will be a legal adult, able to drive, vote, work, etc.
Time needs to slow down so I can savor every last moment with him before he heads off to college.

Another school year passes by

 

Tonight was Riley's open house and choral performance, which means there are only 7 more days of school left. It was a rushed open house since her teacher took ill and had to go home, but we did get a chance to see all of her work and see her stellar choral performance. Riley truly loves singing so it's a great joy to watch her on stage. I feel like my baby is just zipping through elementary school.

Dogs

Yes, a fair amount of my posts have been centered around dogs these days, but it seems that much of my life is centered around dogs these days. It is amazing when you get a puppy for your child how much of your own life is encompassed with caring for said puppy.
Now I am giving you fair warning, for those of you with weak stomachs, DO NOT PROCEED! Step away from the computer, click on another link, go to DSW.com and shop for shoes, but do not continue reading.
With my disclaimer fairly spelled out here goes....
this morning I woke at 5:45 to my son yelling "dad Maggie barfed" and then Scott's loud and exaggerated "oh my god" which was probably an attempt at getting me out of bed to come handle the mess, but I was staying put. So Scott proceeds to clean up the mess and I try desperately to get some more shut eye.
Five minutes later, repeat above scenario, except this time Indy barfed. At this point I give up and get out of bed. I come into the living room to find Indy has vomited on the carpet because she ate, yes that is right she ATE some of Maggie's vomit and it made her sick (she has food allergies but that is whole nother post). So I got to cleanup that joyful mess at 6 am.
Now, I ask you WHY WHY WHY do dogs think it is a good idea to eat barf? Not only do they think it's a good idea, but Indy literally wags her tail and gets excited like this was some awesome treat. She does the same with poo which still has me grossed out even more than the vomit. Seriously on what planet does this look like a good thing? This puppy gets three meals a day and because of the previously mentioned food allergies she gets baby cereal mixed with baby food chicken and chicken broth. Not a bad deal! So why does she act so deprived that vomit and poo are an exciting afternoon treat? I will NEVER understand this phenomenon and this is also the reason I don't let dogs kiss me and will never believe the "dogs mouths are cleaner than humans mouths" because I have never once been tempted to eat vomit or poo and I floss and brush twice a day. I have yet to see Indy head to the bathroom for a good brushing. Although, maybe that should be a new chore for Riley

NOT a fair fight

 

We got Indiana a new toy, a tug toy. She loves to chew and pull on blankets so we figured this would be a good choice to keep her occupied. I never expected Maggie to be so interested in it though. She loves to have tug-o-wars with Indiana. Of course, this is not a fair fight. Indiana weighs 4 lbs and Maggie weighs in at 65 lbs. I have found this is a great way to keep the dogs occupied and wear Indiana out. It's hilarious to see Maggie tugging Indy around the house and then when she has had enough she flicks her head and Indy goes flying. No worries, though Indy has yet to be harmed in this process and always comes back for more. I did try several times to get a shot of Indy being flung around by Maggie, but I was never quick enough.

Boston-Day Four

 

We still had our rental car on our last day in the city so we drove over to Salem. We visited the Salem Witch Museum which gives you a history of the trials and of witchcraft itself. After that we visited the Salem Witch Trials memorial. An appropriately somber memorial to the 19 people who were killed during the summer of the trials. Then we hopped back in the car and drove over to The House of Seven Gables. We did not pay for the tour, but walked around and looked at the home and grounds before heading to the waterfront for lunch. At lunch we had a nice view of the water and a ship called The Friendship of Salem which I still don't know the significance of since there was no sign explaining anything about it.
After lunch we drove over to Marblehead and spent a couple hours walking through the town. I loved that the historical homes all have plaques next to the front door that state the name and occupation of the person whom the house was originally built for and also the year it was built. We also visited Crocker park which had great views of Marblehead Harbor.
The man at the rental car counter recommended that we drive down highway 1A for a "picturesque and scenic drive" back into Boston. That man was either smoking something funny or he had a great laugh at sending the tourists on a drive from hell. There was no "picturesque" unless you consider auto malls picturesque. In fact we only caught one glimpse of the water on the whole drive. Finally about an hour into the drive I turned on the GPS and got us on the quickest route back into town.
When we got back in we turned in the rental car and went up to our room to rest up a bit. Then we headed back to Joe's American to meet my friend Linda for dinner and to have some more back bay sangrias (YUM!). We spent a couple of hours visiting with Linda and enjoying our dinner and sangrias before we hopped on the subway to go to the north end. Debbi's favorite dessert is Boston cream pie and she insisted that we had to have it at least once before we left. So we went back to Mike's pastry and found that it is apparently THE place to be on a Friday night. The lines stretched into the street. While we were in line we had two women in front of us from Philly and we just kept laughing out loud at their conversations about what they were going to get, etc. They had the best Philly accents. So Debbi got her Boston cream pie and I opted for the carrot cake which was the best carrot cake I have ever had. We also found out that Mike's pastry ships anywhere in the U.S. this is dangerous information. I might have to get cannoli's shipped to CA. LOL!

Saturday we really did not have much time before our flights. We just packed up and had breakfast before checking out and taking the subway to the airport. It was a long trip home with lots of turbulents and rushed connections so it was so nice to get off the plane and see Scott and the kids waiting there for me. Scott even had a plate of lasagna at home for me along with french bread and a bottle of wine chilling. It was a nice way to end the day after 12 hours traveling and nothing to eat, but snacks that I had in my carry-on bag.

Boston-Day Three

 

Day three we picked up our rental car and headed off on Mrs. Johnson's wild ride. I had great apprehension about driving in Boston. I had seen how crazily people zipped through town and did not want any part of it. I even asked the man at the rental car counter what was the "quickest way out of town". He showed me on the map and I had my handheld GPS and figured I was as prepared as ever, that is until I pulled out of the hotel onto a three lane street that seemed to be missing one crucial thing... lines! There were no lines dividing the lanes and everybody just drives willy nilly all over the place. I need structure!!! After a few seconds of freaking out about this I just joined in the chaos and we were off.
Once we got on the 93 it was a nice quiet drive down to Newport, Rhode Island. I loved how green everything was. Being from Southern California the only green we encounter is professionally landscaped and planned. Here everything was green and forested and just beautiful. Once we got to Newport we stopped at the visitor center to get a map of the mansions and buy our tickets for the home tours. We decided to tour two homes and chose the Breakers and Marble House. Both of which were summer "cottages" of the Vanderbilts. My favorite part of the Breakers was the fountain underneath that stairs that was lit to make it feel like an underwater grotto and also the balcony upstairs at the back of the home that they used as an outdoor living room. After the Breakers we took a break for lunch and drove at to Castle Hill Inn. The woman in line behind us at the rental car counter recommended we have lunch there. Castle Hill was beautiful. It's a large Inn right on the water with great little cottages facing the ocean that can be rented out for a mere $1,400 a night during peak season. Gulp! I guess I will never be staying in one of those lovely cottages, but it was nice to dream about relaxing on the deck in the Adirondack chairs. Thankfully, lunch was much more reasonably priced and even though it was raining out we had a nice view of the bay and delicious shrimp, lobster and corn chowder.
After lunch we drove around Ocean drive and I had to get out and brave the wind and rain so I could touch the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. I almost took a swim in the Atlantic when I stood on a slippery rock for Debbi to take my picture and almost fell off, TWICE. Thankfully, I made it back to the car relatively dry and we headed to Marble House for the next tour. Marble house is exactly as it sounds... made almost entirely of Marble. Apparently Alva Vanderbilt agreed to oversee the building of Marble house only if her husband agreed to gift it to her outright. He agreed and she divorced him three years after it was finished. She then married another man who lived down the street, moved to his home, and used Marble house for suffragists meetings and as an "extra closet".
I would have liked to have had time to tour all the homes and take our time, but maybe on another trip someday. After all Scott's cousin lives in Providence so we may have to find an excuse to visit.
On our drive back to Boston we decided, spur of the moment, to head over to Cambridge instead and have dinner near Harvard Square. It was still raining, but I was quite excited when we were pulling off the highway and I looked out to the window and saw the Weld Boathouse. It's just one of those things that I have always seen in photos and there it was right in front of me.
After much driving around in the rain and looking for a parking spot we finally parked the car and walked back over to Harvard Square. We had dinner at Mr. Bartley's Gourmet burgers where all the burgers are named after local and national celebrities and political figures and the walls are plastered with signs, posters and memorabilia. After dinner we walked around a bit while I texted/harassed Zachary about the fact that I was visiting his future college and shopped a bit in the Harvard bookstore before we were done for the day.

Boston-Day Two

 

On our second day in the city we headed out onto the Freedom Trail. Our guidebook said that we could complete the trail in about 4 hours, it took us nine. Of course we did stop at Omni Parker House for Boston cream pie martinis and then we had an excellent lunch in the north end followed by a stop at Mike's pastry so I guess nine hours was not so bad.
Some of the highlights from the Freedom Trail (besides the martinis) was Paul Revere's house, Old North Church and my personal favorite was standing on the spot where the first shot was fired that started the American Revolution and of course the canoli's from Mike's pastry. Scott was greatly disappointed that we did not go on board the USS Constitution, but it was at the end of the day and honestly "seen one old boat you've seen them all". We had a great plan to tell our husbands that we toured the ship, but when I talked to Scott that night I caved like a house of cards. We also met an adorable little girl named Isabel who had a prime lemonade stand location right next to Bunker hill on the Freedom Trail. Her mom said they were "gearing up for the busy season" so they were just giving away the lemonade. I think Isabel is going to make a killing with her lemonade stand this summer. Bunker hill was a nice place to end the day, just laying on the grass looking up at the monument and relaxing before we headed back into town for dinner.

Boston-Day 1

 

Debbi and I arrived in Boston Monday afternoon. We took the subway to the back bay where our hotel, The Westin Copley, was located. It was an easy and cheap (1.70) train ride and the subway station let us off right near our hotel. We checked in, dropped off our luggage and headed over to the Prudential building to check out the views. Once we reached the 50th floor where the obsevation deck is we realized they charge $12. to go out on the observation deck. Being the smart frugal travelers that we are we opted to go up to the bar on the 52nd floor and spend that money on a couple of drinks while we took in the view. Then we headed over to Legal Sea Food for dinner to get us started on our fill of seafood for the week.
Tuesday, our first full day there, we started our day with the Duck Tour. I HIGHLY reccomend this to anyone visiting Boston. You ride on an amphibious vehicle (some of which are original WWII vehicles) and they drive you around Boston and into the Charles River. Our driver was hilarious and the 80 minute tour was tons of fun. It was also a great way to take in the sights and get an idea of what we really wanted to see when walking through the city.
After the tour we headed over to the Boston Public Library (of course) and spent some time walking through and just taking in the architecture. It's a beautiful building and the first public lending library in the U.S.
Then it was back on the train to head out to the JFK Library. We spent a couple of hours there and I actually learned many new things about JFK's life and his time in the White House. By the time we finished it was getting late so we headed back on the train to our hotel.
That night we went to Joe's American and had back bay Sangrias (EXCELLENT) and Lobster ravioli. We had an interesting conversation with our waiter who mentioned that he lived in CA for a year and everyone from CA is "dumb as rocks" and that he also had a group in from TX the previous week and they were also "dumb as rocks". Debbi and I still tipped him and I'm not sure why. Maybe we are dumb as rocks. LOL! That quote did give us great laughs the rest of our trip though. Whenever we were lost or not sure where we wanted to go, etc. One of us would accuse the other of being "dumb as rocks".
After dinner we were still not ready for the day to end so we walked down Commonwealth Ave to the Boston Public Gardens and saw the Swan Boats and also the bronze ducks from "Make Way for Ducklings" where we had to take our pictures sitting on the ducks. The public gardens were beautiful and I am in love with Commonwealth avenue. I picked out my home and everything. Now if only I were independently wealthy.

Indy's nightly ritual

Every night around 7-7:30 Indy gets a HUGE burst of energy. She runs around in circles, tries to get under the sofa (which is now lined on the bottom with rolled up towels) and then grabs her bed, drags it out of her crate, flips it upside down and does this until she falls into exhausted sleep and I move her and her bed back to the crate

Riley getting her puppy

This is my first attempt at posting youtube video (thanks for the tips Shelly). Oh and I have no idea why it put April 11, 2009 in there because I did not put the date on and it's wrong. Oh well, at this point I don't care.

Our new family member

Well, it seems like Riley has been saving for and talking about her future puppy forever, but she is finally here. Riley was so excited.

Although she looks quite large when Riley is holding her, she is only three pounds and you can tell when she is next to Maggie that she is just a pipsqueek.

So far it has been a long exciting day filled with howling, whining, peeing, pooping and me running around cleaning it up. I will be thrilled when she is housebroken and crate trained. Riley is really taking good care of her though and is over the moon. I heard her tell Zachary earlier that she "needs to pinch herself because she must be dreaming". LOL!

Saying good-bye

Uncle Sylvester, Riley and I at his 75th birthday party-Nov. 2006

This week I had to say good-bye to one of my favorite people in this world. My Uncle Sylvester passed away and he will be sorely missed by many. I have looked up to and counted on my Uncle my entire life and I'm still just a bit shocked that he is truly gone. We celebrated his life yesterday, as he wished, and it was great sharing memories and old photos and seeing friends and family we had not seen in years. I know Uncle Sylvester was looking down on us and smiling and wishing he could be with us. He always said that he has been on borrowed time since he should have died all those years ago when he lost his leg in the Korean war. He never took one of those days for granted and he always made sure everyone knew that he loved them. I'm going to try to honor his example and remember to live each day to the fullest and frequently tell my loved ones what they mean to me. We love you Uncle Sylvester and will see you again someday!

Differences between boys and girls

The kids both needed spring/summer clothes so this weekend we headed to the mall for some clothes shopping. Zachary, being a 13 yr old boy, grumbled, complained and did NOT want to go clothes shopping. I caved on this point simply because I did not want the grumbling and complaining along for the shopping trip. Riley on the other hand, being a 9 year old girl, bounced happily out to the car jabbering about clothes, etc.
Once we got to the outlet mall we headed straight for our favorite store, Gymboree. Riley was like a little fashion model trying on everything I picked out for her and happily modeling it for me. In the end we had to narrow down our purchase because I just could not afford to buy all the outfits and accessories that she loved.
Then to tackle the clothes for the growing boy. I went to Kohl's found shorts on sale for 50% off, bought four different styles/colors and $54 later I am done. I got home, showed Zachary his new shorts. He barely glanced at them grumbled something that I suspect was "cool" and went back to doing his own thing.
Girls may be more expensive, but they are much more fun to dress up!

Watering the weeds

Riley has recently been responsible for watering the plants in our brick planters. The weather has been warmer the past couple of weeks so every few nights I send her out to water the plants while I am making dinner. Tonight I went outside after dinner since it was still light out and it was a nice warm evening. I noticed with the warm weather that a few weeds have popped up in the planters. I also noticed they were nice and wet around the roots. Hmmm, apparently Riley has been watering the weeds right along with the plants. They should be nice and big and ready for harvesting soon!

Time just flies by.

I know how cliche the saying is, but it just needs to be said again. Every once in a while I have a moment when I look at my children, really look at them and wonder "how did they get so big". I know that all of you moms can understand this. Today was one of those days. I made some vegetable soup for dinner tonight and was making grilled cheese sandwiches to go with them. Both of the kids ate two grilled cheese sandwiches each (Riley requested a third, but I declined) and they ate a full bowl of soup. It made me realize that lately my kids actually eat more than I do.
Mark my words those grilled cheese sandwiches and soup will not last them through the rest of the evening. They will both be hungry again before bed. I remember the days when the two of them would have split one sandwich or just nibbled on bits of my sandwich. Now they are eating more than me and don't think I don't even those skinny little piggies eating everything in sight and remaining skinny little piggies. Awwww, the days before hormones kicked my bahookie!
So I guess I have years ahead of me that the pantry will not remain stocked for long

Back to normal

Zachary's room is finally finished today. The flooring and baseboards were done and I managed to get the furniture back in before he got home from school. I love the new wood floors and wish I could put them through the rest of the house. I know I am not going to miss the carpet which was only a few years old and already had some stains on it. It's just nice to have his things back in his room and I am sure he is going to be thrilled that his room is no longer a "prison cell" look.

Curlers

Last night I did something that I swore I would never do.... I had Riley sleep with curlers in her hair. My mom used to make me wear these pink rubber curlers to bed almost every night. I HATED them. I hated sitting to have my hair curled (I used to hide when it was time to get my hair rolled) and I hated sleeping with them in. Since Riley has been growing her hair out to donate to Locks of Love it is harder and harder to keep it looking nice. She has straight hair that unless it is blown dry with a round brush it ends up looking stringy., but she complains that it takes too long to dry. So last night I suggested that she let me roll it in curlers. She agreed and it did not take long to curl it (I have the aforementioned curlers from my childhood). This morning I just took the curlers out, ran my fingers through her hair and put a couple of barrettes in. Voila, two minutes and she was ready. I took this picture tonight and miracle of all miracles her hair is still curled and this is what it looked like after the whole day. I think I need to call my mom and apologize for all those times I complained about her forcing me to wear curlers to bed because I am starting to understand her way of thinking. Look out Riley I see more curlers in your future.

Cursed?

I am not generally superstitious, but I am starting to think that I may be cursed. Maybe I can find a band of gypsies to lift the curse or search the internet to find some pagan ritual to perform by the full moon? I'm not sure what, but something has got to give.
We started off the string of bad luck when the pipe leaked under the slab in Zachary's room. We are still working on getting that all back together since the projects are reserved for the weekends. Then we had the garbage disposal under the sink leak and that still has a bucket under it until we can tackle replacing the disposal. Then yesterday our master bathroom toilet got clogged and overflowed. Thankfully, we caught that right away and it only affected the tile floor and area rugs. Scott was able to plung it and mop up the mess. I just flat out refuse to handle the sewer water problems, that is where I make my husband take over. I still cannot walk barefoot on the tile floor because I know it recently had sewer water there. It does not matter that the floor has been cleaned and the rugs washed because I KNOW what was there.
So I think my curse involves water? I guess I will be researching how to lift that type of curse. I guess it's a good thing I don't live closer to the beach or we might be hit by a tsunami.