Collage Concert

Sean's in that sea of black and white, sunglass-wearing, recorder-playing, fourth grade maniacs somewhere. The district music teacher decided that grades 3-12 from all of the schools should cram into the HS at once for a concert. There were hundreds of parents, not even a hundred chairs, and lots of noise. Of course we had to stay for one of the Fab 4's beginning band concert... that's love.

Shadow the Destructor

I never understood why they sell refills for the rolled up cardboard center of the spinning ball toy. Now I know. My rat/tarantula-killer decided the toy needed to die today. Doesn't he look proud of himself? Who says 7 yr old cats don't play with toys?!

Belly Shots

Some people fall into our lives in the strangest ways, and then we choose to never let them go! This is Melissa, our horseback trainer. She wasn't even married when we met, and now look, poof it's time for Baby#2! You've already seen Alli, Baby#1, with me on Willy. How will I ride with TWO of them?

Cousins!

Whew, busy weekend. My niece Amy (14) and nephew Bryan (12) were here from Friday to Monday so their parents could have an anniversary weekend winetasting. It's a great deal for me, I get all weekend with my lovies AND they pay me in wine when they pick them up!

We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium on Saturday, the boys went batting and laser tagging and we all went to a movie (Spiderwick Chronicles) on Sunday, and I took the kids geocaching today while Ken planted the new rosemary bushes. After they left, Sean's piano was cancelled so we went to see another movie, Jumper. Can I go to bed now?

Here are a few pictures to make up for the days I missed. Even another one of me, with my big sis, who bought me a bottle of Twisted Sister wine. Yes, we deserve each other.

Vday Date

Both kids had a sleepover at our friend in the pink dress's house. So we got to have a valentine's date! Too bad Vicky was too excited about 8 boys trashing her house to hold the camera still!

Ken's sacrifice

Just so you know what Ken's giving up for the carpool stickers... what a disgustingly grown-up decision. : )

Wow, in this picture you can barely see where the deer ran into the side of the car at high speed, on his way to Border's the night we won the first Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book.

SLEEPover???

No post last night because I was sleeping on the floor of a church with 11 goofy girl scouts. Why exactly do they call it a SLEEPover anyway?

Neon Dance

Rachel and the girls got together before tonight's Neon Dance. Here's a pic of them destroying Laura's beautiful new master bath, and one of over-protective Jose demanding to know who they were going to dance with. : )

Laughing

It's not the best picture I've ever taken of Sean, but I had to share him laughing at Ken so hard that he was crying and trying to catch his breath. If you click on the picture, you can see it bigger, tears and all. We all had a terrible case of the giggles tonight, and Sean had it the worst! Must have been his first official baseball practice that put him in such a good mood.

Walter gets a bone

Remember Walter's new puppy buddy, Lucy? Well, she sent him a gift in the mail. He really liked her Nylabone when we were there, so she sent him his own! He didn't put it down for hours, even took it to bed with him.

Penalty Blog

This is what happens when you give me a hard time for missing two whopping days of blogging... you become my subject for the day. I'll teach you! In her defense, it was an eighties party, she doesn't always look like Cyndi Lauper.

So this is my dear friend Victoria or Vicky or Tikki or The Englishwoman, depending on the time of day you ask me. We carpool several times a day most days, live together through soccer season on one or two teams, suffer through painful PTA tasks, and are Girl Scout Leaders for life. Needless to say, Vicky and I drink a lot of red wine together.

Oh, and the non-registered, non-voter has seen more of this country on vacation than I have, so I'm going to become part of their family for travel. I'm trying to convince her to get her US citizenship just for this November's election. It's all her fault we had Bush twice, since she didn't vote, right?

I'm off to go proofread the Middle School newsletter that she typed. Ugh.

New Ride

What's the world coming to when you sacrifice horsepower for ability to hop into the carpool lane? Ken decided to give up his 175hp Acura RSX for this, an 80hp 2004 Honda Civic Hybrid. We're estimating it cost an extra $2k because of this yellow sticker. Perfect car for Miss Leadfoot to learn to drive, only 4 years from now! Yikes!

Elephant Bar

Wow, where did the weekend go? Besides being rained out... I hate when the house leaks in multiple places!

We spent Friday evening at the batting cages with Sean's new little league team. He went to sleep at Kyle's, and Ken and I went out to dinner ALONE. Rachel spent Saturday at a bar mitzvah and Sean came home just in time for a birthday party down the street. I spent all afternoon at a meeting about animal rescue. I may have kittens to bottle feed again soon!

We drove over the hill today to check out a used Honda Civic Hybrid for Ken, since it has stickers to get it into the carpool lane. We go back tomorrow to buy it! This is a pic of my sleepy, hungry boys at lunch after our test drive.