The Weaver Family

10 Random Things

2012-02-05T12:09:00.002-05:00

1. First of all - Happy Superbowl Sunday! We kind of forgot about the Superbowl this year (since the Steelers didn't make it) so our spread is a little underwhelming. We're going to crash our neighbors house this evening, haven't told them that yet, so hopefully they have a bit more. Right about now I'm missing Kris' Bree cheese bread.

2. It's been a rough couple of months in our household. Kurt went through all the stages - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance and go ahead and through in shame, outrage at PSU, outrage at the media, and finally - glad this is all over with. He's still a Penn State Fan and thinks highly of JoePa and all the good things he's done. Thanks Joe!

3. Miniature trains. We didn't really grow up with miniature trains. I remember the one that Uncle Bill had when we were little visiting our cousins in McKeesport, but that's about it. Kurt on the other hand has 3 generations of trains that have been handed down to him. They've been in boxes for the past 5 years and he finally decided to get them and see if he could get them running. His parents were a big help in this, buying him new track and a transformer for Christmas and then picking up stuff for the town at flee markets. I had no idea they were so intricate. The lights on the train crossing light up and the red and white arm goes down every time the train passes. The train cars and some of the houses also light up. And there is smoke and a whistle that come out of the train too. We're not going crazy yet, but Kurt had fun setting it up and Jon had fun playing with it.

4. After a year and a half, Kurt ended his job at Bethesda Softworks. His job wasn't in the department he wanted, but he wanted to get his foot in the door and see how the Company worked and get something on his resume. It turned out to be a good move. BSW is an awesome company and it is doing really well. The only complaint I had was that they didn't pay overtime (something they changed earlier this year). Kurt was very proud to have worked on two of the most popular games published in the last two years - both Game of the Year winners. To celebrate this, we made little shrines in our basement :)

5. The Lake Placid Ironmen is sneaking up on us so we've cleaned up the other part of our basement and turned it into a workout area. I've actually started using Kurt's bike trainer and it's really fun. Yesterday I did a Tour or Rome that took 30 minutes and only had a few hills. The GymPac is something that was sitting in Kurt's parents basement. It's from the early 80s, but it still works really well.

6. Not helping the Ironman training, but loved by everyone else in the family is the automatic M&M dispenser that Kurt got for Christmas from one of his co-workers (thanks for the M&M's mom!). It's set to automatically dispense a small handful every time you put your hand under the dispenser.

7. I haven't seen Micaela in a while. That's because she finally got to a high enough level on World of Warcraft where she was able to get a mount (something you can ride) and has been glued to the computer for the past day. She picked a winged horse for her mount. "Oh, a Pegasus" (me) "No mom, it's a celestial steed; Pegasus sounds too girly" (micaela). Ha! We've turned her into a dork :)

8. After living in this house for 25 months, we finally got curtains put up in the formal living room. While we were at it, we did a little re-arranging around the house. Never mind that we will be moving in 4 months. We moved Jon back to his original room with the sports theme in it, but we gave him different furniture including the double bed that was in the basement. Micaela also got an upgrade. She stayed in the same room, but got the furniture that was in our guest room. Miceala did her own decorating and Kurt did up Jon's room in Star Wars stuff.

9. And what prompted this room change and rearranging of furniture?? Did we just feel like replacing our guest room with a sitting room?

Nope. Kurt needed somewhere to play his old video game consoles and they can only be played on the old CRT TVs like we had in that room. He got the Atari for Christmas and the rest were mostly given to him by people who had them in their attic and weren't using them anymore. It is so much better playing Mario on the original Nintendo with the original controller. I've also taught Jon how to play Sonic the Hedgehog. He's better at it than Kurt.

10. If you haven't done so already - please donate a few bucks to Livestrong! Kurt is running his first Marathon in March and has signed up with Livestrong to be on their team and raise money for them. He only has a little bit left to reach his goal. Just clink below and then click the "donate to Kurtis" button above the thermometer! http://laf.livestrong.org/site/TR?px=1006461&pg=personal&fr_id=1140&et=3CRhjkMB9M8rH4BAhl3Vtg&s_tafId=1321

Christmas Part II

2011-12-25T09:38:00.001-05:00

And it's charged...

Christmas 2011!!!!

2011-12-25T09:11:00.001-05:00

I think you can see from the pictures below, this is one of the best Christmas's we've ever had. Micaela loved everything. Her big gifts were an electric guitar (thanks Grandma and Pappy), a $100 bill (thanks Grandpa Oscar), a Netflix box for her TV in her room (thanks Mom and Dad), and finally a new touch screen cell phone (thanks Grandma Ginny and Grandpa Dennis)!!! We made Micaela go on a little scavenger hunt to find the phone, see the movie below. Jon also had a wonderful Christmas. He was much slower and more deliberate at opening his presents. He's at a great age where all his presents are of equal coolness (the cheap cars tin with the lock and key and the Pez dispenser were as big a hit as the interactive lightsaber). He has also been into these Trio blocks, so those were a hit as well. Kurt's big gifts were his bike seat, his helicopter millenium falcon (currently charging), tracks and parts for his Christmas trains, and finally an atari with a ton of games (Micaela's gift, she scored a great deal at a flee market). The funniest gift of the morning were the pink pants that Kurt got. I'm not home so I can't share the wonderful picture that was the inspiration for them. I got some great gifts as well. My closet has been looking very aged lately (i.e. most of my clothes are 5-10 years old), so I was thrilled to get a bunch of new clothes, plus earrings, perfume, easy cooking appliances, candy, cereal bowls (thanks for remembering Mom!), and a heart rate monitor. Oh yeah, and about a month ago I got an iPad that I've used daily since :)

Another Christmas First

2011-12-22T20:19:00.002-05:00

Tonight one of our friends from the neighborhood, also named Liz, invited a bunch of friends to go Christmas Carolling. I was a little leery at first, as I am pretty sure I'm tone deaf (despite many years of elementary/middle/high school band), but apparently so is everyone else! We went so that I could say I had gone caroling once in my life, but ended up having a great time. We were out for about an hour knocking on doors and singing to those brave enough to open them. Our group had as many or more kids than adults, so it was a little crazy, but everyone had fun.

I don't think the lady is below is as grumpy as she looks, she did clap when we were done...perhaps it's just the natural reaction to our beautiful voices (listen to the movie below). The little girl was very cute!

We really liked this house, but no one was home, so we told the kids to hurry up and get behind the decoarations so we could take a picture :)

Jon didn't really sing, but he found other things to keep him occupied, like babysitting.

More Christmas Fun

2011-12-02T18:49:00.000-05:00

It must be because I missed last Christmas, that I'm more excited thanever for the holidays. I started Christmas shopping well before Black Friday and convinced Kurt to get a tree while we were in PA. We've dug up all our decorations that have been boxed up for two years and tonight we're working on another project (see below). I'm not very patient, so I'm going to have a glass of wine and watch Kurt and Jon while they clean, oil, and set-up this train set under the tree. It's actually pretty cool - there are sounds and lights and steam, oh my. Can't wait to see the finished project!

Christmas Tree Farming

2011-11-27T18:15:00.001-05:00

Liz: I didn't know there were such things as Christmas Tree farms

Kurt: Where did you think stores got their Christmas Trees from?

Liz: I just thought they went out into the woods and cut some down, like in Christmas Vacation.

Needless to say, we got our Christmas Tree this weekend. From a Christmas Tree Farm. In Pennsylvania. We got a saw, rode a tractor out to where the Blue Spruce trees were, picked one out, cut it down, drug it out to the road, loaded it on the trailer, and watched Kurt and his dad strap it to the top of our Minivan. Then we drove home to MD, cut a couple feet off the bottom (I thought we had taller ceilings...oops), got it set up in the living room, and then watched as the kids decorated it. Something I learned along the way - Blue Spruce are spikey!! They are pretty though. Overall it was a fun experience and now I can say that I've cut down my own Christmas Tree.

The map that tells you where the different trees are

One of the trailers that took people out to the various tree lots (if you didn't want to walk)

What a Christmas Tree farm looks like

An 11 year old with a saw, and a 4 year old... what could possibly go wrong

Dragging the spikey tree back out to the road

She actually saws better than I do

Unloading the trailer

The final product. We decided to keep it simple and only used our "special" ornaments this year.

Weekend Fun

2011-11-20T14:52:00.000-05:00

Well, our "active family Saturday" didn't quite work out this weekend. Micaela has all next week off and convinced Grandma to let her spend the week up in PA. So instead of getting up and doing our outside activity, we got up, loaded up the car, and drove to Hagerstown, MD which, in addition to a great outlet mall, actually has a really good German restaurant. Kurt and I enjoyed gluhwein and krystalweizen with our jagerschnitzel and bratwurst and the kids enjoyed seeing Grandma and Pappy. After lunch Kurt, Jon and I headed back home after lunch and took naps / relaxed until the football games come on. It was a great day yesterday with both USC and PSU winning their games :) The gluhwein we had at lunch was so good that Kurt had the great idea to look up a recipe to make it ourselves and we went over to our neighbors to share the deliciousness with them (and they shared their delicious smoked turkey with us). Overall, great day.

Since we didn't do our "active family Saturday", we decided that we would just move it to today, Sunday. There is a small lake in the middle of Fort Meade called Burba Lake. As I was driving past it last week I noticed a trail going around the lake. I wanted to know how long it was, so Jon and I headed out there with a jogging stroller to measure the distance (.75 miles). He liked looking at all the geese and I got a little exercise in. To be fair to Jon and get him moving, we did a second lap around the lake with Jon on his bike. He did really well and actually went pretty fast at first, but got tired halfway around and I ended up pushing his bike most of the way back. At one point we got close to some geese / ducks who thought we might have some food for them. It was all I could do to keep Jon from "petting" the geese. Lucky for us, Fort Meade just installed a bunch of new playgrounds around Post, one of which was right by Burba Lake. Jon loved the playground, but unfortunately no one was there that early in the morning so I had to run around and play with him. It was still fun, but next time we go we'll take Micaela and then they'll really have a good time.

Oops, went a little off-road

Can you spot the goose/duck in this picture?

Saturday Mornings

2011-11-14T09:30:00.000-05:00

Two weeks ago Kurt had an idea. He was tired of lazy weekend mornings and thought that we needed something to get us up and moving on Saturdays so we starting Active Family Saturdays. Basically, we get up and out of the house by 9am and do something outside or active. For the first one Micaela had the idea that we should go out in the backyard and pickup all the leaves (really?). That's what Kurt wanted to do too, so we bundled up and headed outside. It was actually kind of fun despite the fact that Kurt and I did the bagging while the kids ran around the yard and played chase with the dogs or kicked the soccer ball around. Still, it met it's purpose in that we all spent the morning together, outside, doing something.

This past weekend I had no desire to bag leaves (which are never ending) so I suggested we head over to the Piney Orchard Nature Preserve. I found this place while running with one of my old co-workers and Kurt and the kids had never been there. Its a series of trails (some hard trails, some dirt trails) that run through a nature preserve that was made around a few lakes. Ironically these lakes are the result of a mining company that needed somewhere to pump groundwater. It was still a nice walk though and the kids liked running through the woods and throwing rocks and playing with sticks and such.

Snow!!!

2011-11-14T09:08:00.000-05:00

I've been a little delinquent in my blogging, but now that I'm home alone (whoo hoo!) I have a few minutes to catch up on what we've been doing.

For the most part, we've been spending our weekends here in MD, just doing stuff around the house, watching football, and relaxing. Occasionally we make the trip up to PA and do the same stuff up there - watch football and relax. Two weeks ago we saw that they were predicting snow up in PA and Kurt immediately decided that we needed to go. Kurt's parents were great hosts (especially since they had watched the kids the previous weekend while Kurt and I celebrated with Ranj in DC) and the kids loved the snow.

It is so nice having "older" kids - we just suited them up and pushed them out the door and they were content playing in the snow all day. Micaela even got Jon off to an early start with the snowboarding. I was impressed with how well they both did.

While playing with your little brother is alright, it's much more fun when cousins are around!

And of course the biggest kid in the family also went out to play. I was content with taking pictures, although I did go down the sled run once or twice :)

Halloween Funnies

2011-10-31T19:01:00.000-05:00

Recipe for a great Halloween:

1 x 11 year old
1 x 3 year old
1 x neighbor with a big bottle of wine and a couple of tumblers
4 x neighborhood kids
1 x patient husband

Halloween here isn't quite like it was in California (houses weren't decorated nearly as cool), but it was still fun. Jon made it particularly funny. Some of my favorite quotes:

"Mom. it's a wolf, hold my hand!" - referring to his friend Jack who had been trick-or-treating with us the entire time (to his credit, it was a sort of scarey wolf)

"Mom, I want to go home and lay on the couch and watch dora and take a drink." Okay, buddy.

"Look mom, there's our house! We made it around the world!"

Kurt - "We made it around China?" Jon - "That's a bad word daddy"

Lake Placid

2011-08-07T18:24:00.003-05:00

Well, it's Sunday. Kurt is at work and won't be home until well after I'm asleep. Micaela has packed all her clothes for CA, done all her chores, and is chilling out downstairs with the music we just uploaded onto her iTouch. Jon has played, ridden a train at a sort-of nearby park, watched some Dora, got a haircut (used Kurt's clippers), and is now splashing in the bath. I have made sure all of the above happened, done all the laundry, done a few household chores, and I actually have a few minutes of free-time (as long as Jon keeps playing nicely in the bath). I've decided to spend this free-time blogging since I've been so negligent lately.

Now, I should be telling you all the cute and funny things the kids have been doing lately, but if I don't write them down right away, I just forget. Jon's a hoot though, and Micaela is just plain good and helpful. If Jon does something funny in the next few minutes I'll be sure to capture it.

Okay, back to the purpose of this blog - our summer vacation to Lake Placid. Kurt and his friend Todd came up with this crazy idea to do the Lake Placid Ironman Triathalon. I think it was Todd's idea, I'm not quite sure how he convinced Kurt to do it seeing as how Kurt has never done a triathalon.. but Kurt's determined and has been working hard. We had to go to Lake Placid during this year's Ironman so that the guys could volunteer and get early registration for next year. That part of the vacation was kind of exhausting because the race starts at 7am and finishes at midnight and then there was the early registration. The rest of the vacation was nice though. The town of Lake Placid is very cute and reminds me a lot of Mammoth (one main street with one grocery store, one fast food restaurant, and a lot of little shops). We spend one day being the typical tourists and we got an Olympic Passport that gave us access to all the key sites. We only had time to visit the hockey rink, the downhill skiing mountain, and the ski jump area - but they were all great and we got some good pictures. I'm just going to post a bunch of my favorite pictures to give you a better idea.

Our Cabin (45 min from Lake Placid, middle of nowhere)

The screened in porch was awesome, Jon and Will did pretty well playing together

There was a small pond with a playground not too far from the cabin

Micaela invited her friend Livy to come (which made the trip a lot more fun)

This looks kind of scary... not sure what we were thinking

The Volunteers

The finishline, just before the midnight cutoff

What you do the night after the "midnight finishline party"

Inside the Lake Placid Olympic Museum

Where the Miracle on Ice took place (I didn't really know about this until this vacation, perhaps I should watch more movies)

Shopping on Main Street

This is the view from a coffee shop we found while visiting the local shops - this is Mirror Lake, where they do the Ironman swim. Lake Placid (the lake) isn't actually all that close to the town.

That same day we also happened upon a community band concert. The oboe player was incredible.

It's not a Weaver, Estes, Pedrick vacation without a game of wiffleball

The kids played in the woods while the guys played wiffleball and the ladies napped

They even found some wild blueberries that were really good

Picnic at Mirror Lake before touring the Olympic facilities

This is where they practice their freestyle jumps/flips, they land in a big swimming pool

Ski Jumpers are CRAZY

See comment above

This is the view from the top of the Gondola on Whiteface Mountain

That's Lake Placid in the background, and this was the only time we ever saw the lake

Possibly my favorite part of the trip. It was a pretty tiring vacation, so this visit to the pub near the end was well timed.

Camping and more

2011-07-04T17:31:00.013-05:00

This weekend we went to PA to see Kurt's parents (his dad just had a small surgery, but is doing well) and his sister invited us to come out to their campsite and spend a few days camping with them. It was my first time camping since college, and I now I'm realizing what an amateur I was. The campsite is really nice and had everything you could ask for. The adults spent most the day making breaks in the crick (not creek) so that the current would be slow enough for the kids to play in and they dammed it at one end to make it a little deeper for fishing. There was a field for the kids to play sports, places for all the tents, a nice camping kitchen, a big firepit, a screen for projecting movies at night, and even a camping toilet! The site was about 10 minutes from Kurt's parents so I even got to go back and take a shower and have a small break from constantly watching Jon (to make sure he didn't hit his head on the rocks around the crick or get hit in the head with a baseball from the older kids). There were a few kids his size though and it was really funny watching them run in circles thinking it was a game. Micaela did her job well as the oldest cousin making sure everyone played nicely, playing "older sister" to her little girl cousin, and helping out with whatever was needed. The week prior to this she had been out at the cabin with her Aunt who had showed her the ropes of camping, making her bait her own hooks and release her own fish, so she was well prepared :) I didn't think to take a camera so this is what I was able to take with Kurt's phone before it died. I have a video but blogger is giving me problems so I'll have to post it later.

The other pictures are older ones that I found on Kurt's phone from various other spring/summer outings including the half-marathon in VA Beach in March and our trip to DC with the Covaney's in April.

P.S. Am I the only one to just now realize you can upload more than one picture at a time?? That is one of the big reasons why I don't blog very often, how long has that been an option... geez.

Happy 11th Birthday Micaela!!

The metro (aka choo choo train) was really cool

Micaela and her best friend from Williamsburg, Jocelyn

This was, by-far, the best exhibit in the Air and Space Museum. The helicopter would fly away and then come back around (on a video loop). Jon must have watched for 10 minutes :)

Success!

2011-06-22T05:54:00.008-05:00

Yeah!!!! We grew something besides weeds! Here's a look at how our garden project progressed. Hopefully next week I'll have some sunflower pictures and tomatoes and I'll take a picture of the baby pumpkin/squash (can't tell the difference because they've kind of grown together and taken over the garden).

Dinner Party

2011-06-12T09:24:00.028-05:00

Yesterday we had our first dinner party in our MD house (having Georgia, Todd, and Mike over doesn't count, they are practically family). Kurt invited all the people on his team at work to come over and he cooked a Puerto Rican feast. While overall it was a success, there were a few SNAFUs:

Making mofongo is a little bit tricky and apparently a little bit dangerous. This is the result of hot old splashing up onto Kurt's hand (a pretty nice blister):

Next, we noticed a strange car driving up and down our cultesac about 20 minutes before we expected people to arrive. Eventually Kurt realized that it was one of our guests who was having trouble finding the house. The reason for his confusion... Kurt gave everyone the wrong address. Yup. That happened. I don't know who lives at 1404 (our address is 1409), but sorry for all the people knocking on your door last night! Oops.

Third SNAFU... forgetting to take the Mofongo (that was soo painful to make) out of the fridge until after everyone had finished thier dinner. It wasn't needed though, dinner was great without it. Kurt was pretty pissed though since it was so hard to make.

And finally, Kurt was proud to show off his geeky office to all his friends, but he forgot that this was laying on the endtable downstairs:

Perhaps I should explain... it came with my mother's day gift, but we don't know how it's supposed to be used, so we just left it next to the machine and forgot about it until last night. Too funny.

Overall it was a great night. The food was great, the Weaver cake (chocolate cake eaten in a bowl with milk) was a hit, and enough beer was consumed that we got all of Kurt's coworkers to do a round of Dance Central on the Kinect (which is always fun). Here are the rest of the pictures:

The reason for the party was to farewell Joe who is going to work in Texas for a few months. This is Joe blowing out the candles on his Lucky 38 cake.

Oh yeah, and as an early Birthday Party for Micaela / Going Away party for Avalon I took the girls to a spa and got them the "Little Beauty's" package where they got their hair, makeup, and nails done. It turned out really nice and the girls like getting spoiled by the hairdressers who thought they were adorable.

And just when I think the girls are 11 going on 16, they say something like this - "mom, can we rescue the frog that's stuck in this hole?" I said yes and they proceeded to play with it and chase it through the yard for the next 30 minutes until I make them put it on the other side of the fence so it can live in peace.

Progress

2011-06-07T18:47:00.013-05:00

I told Mari I was going to put up a post, so I'm going to update you on our garden. Kurt got the idea he wanted to turn our side yard into a vegetable garden so we rented a big rototiller and this is what happened:

It was a little messy at first and had a lot of grass mixed in, but after two rounds of seeds, I think we are making progress. I can't quite remember what we planted, and there was some mix-up between the first time we planted and the second, but I think this is mostly correct:

Only one beet plant survived the first round of planting, but there are a lot of seedlings now, they are just hard to see. I'm not sure why we planted beets though, they are one of the few foods that I hate. I'm not so sure the peppers and onions are going to show up, but that's okay because the pumpkin is going to take over their rows anyways :)

Here is a better view of the far side of the garden with squash, tomotoes and peppers (that we bought as plants instead of seeds). We planted cantelope and something else below the peppers, but they haven't sprouted yet.

I like geraniums (at least that's what I think they are) because they are hard to kill and they are pretty. Too bad they don't have much smell to them.

Marigolds I think, or maybe petunias. It's more fun when you don't know.

I was having a little trouble focusing the fancy camera that Kurt has (as you'll see in the next two pictures) but here are my little chive sprouts in one of our left-over plastic pots.

Micaela and her BFF Avalon. We're sad that Avalon is moving next week, she fits in pretty well.

And finally... Jon. I wanted to show you his new haircut (thanks Georgia!) that makes him look like a little boy instead of a baby, but it came out a little too fuzzy. I think he's watching Dora and Diego, those are his favorites these days.

Jon's Birthday

2011-05-28T21:19:00.017-05:00

Easter Fun

2011-04-29T18:45:00.039-05:00

This Easter we decided to head up to PA to get out of town and spend some time with family. Unfortunately Grandma and Pappy were off touring the Southwest, but were gracious enough to offer us their house for the weekend. Well, without Grandma and Pappy, their house isn't nearly as much fun, so we headed down the street to hang out with Aunt Kristen and her boys (who were lots of fun). First stop was her backyard playset-

Speaking of Aunt Kristen... here she is taking pictures from the other side of the tunnel

These two are so cute, they are obviously up to no good

Doing what I do best - standing around and watching

Micaela's friend Avalon came with us on this trip, this is her playing on the teeter-totter with Nicholas

I'm not quite sure how he did it, but Kurt got all the kids to pile into the tunnel for a picture

After the kids got tired with the playset they decided to go to the front yard to ride bikes. Avalon wasn't a bike rider, but decided she wanted to learn. It took approximately 10 seconds for her to figure it out. Next thing you know, this happened -

We had a gang.

They probably spent half the day riding around. I love Kristen's long driveway away from any traffic, it made watching the kids so easy.

Micaela showing me her "moves" or were they her "tricks"... I can't keep up.

On Sunday the weather held out long enough for us to have an Easter Egg Hunt and Grandma and Pappy's house. There were a TON of eggs and Kurt did a great job hiding them all over the place.

This is me picking up the "easter eggs" that Spot and Bear decided to leave us... lovely, I know.

Kendall counting his loot.

Okay, these next few pictures are for Misty. She's a little better at it than we are, you can check out her blog at http://mischief-making.blogspot.com/

And because I'm so late in putting this blog together, it's actually Prince William and Kate's wedding day. Here are the girls pretending that they are bridesmaids at the wedding. Cute, huh?

Jon didn't have any fancy scarfs like Micaela and Avalon so he grabbed his blanket and pretended he was... Prince Harry maybe?

Miscellaneous Fun

2011-03-27T09:22:00.029-05:00

Part I - Saturday And now... for a guest appearance... Micaela!! She's usually absent from my blogs because she so busy running around and playing that I never get pictures of her. I'm not quite sure what is up with her puffy eyes in this picture, but she's doing really well and seems to enjoy living here. Taking after his cousins, Jon has figured out how to turn a laundry basket into a super comfy boat. So, what do you do on a Saturday where you are mostly caught up on cleaning, cooking and laundry (thanks Mom!) and actually have time to relax? Well, of course, you rearrange the living room, family room, and dining room! Doesn't everyone do that? Above is our "new" family room. The matching couches that we have went to the living room below. And of course, since we got a "new" table courtesy of our friends Georgia and Todd (thanks guys!), we had to paint the dining room so that it would fit in with the rest of the house, see below. All in a day's work. I actually hate painting, so this sucked, but it looks nice. We still need to do some touch-up work, but it will be nice to have a finished room to eat dinner in. Part II - Grandma and Grandpa's visit The kids were thrilled to have grandma and grandpa visit. They actually played with them and took them outside (something I hate to do when it's cold). Grandpa and mom even helped Micaela with a mentos/Pepsi experiment that I had been postponing. And for a special treat, grandma and grandpa took Jon to the zoo in Washington D.C. which was always my favorite as a kid because of the pandas. Apparently Jon had fun and liked the animals, but not quite as much as he liked crawling around and jumping off the big rocks around the exhibits.

Theybhad Jon walk most of the day so he was good and tuckered out for the babysitter by the end of the week.

Kid Pictures

2011-02-26T19:44:00.009-05:00

So Jon figured out how to use the digital camera this weekend and he's actually pretty good for a two-year old. He might even be able to give mom some lessons. He even managed to turn the camera around and take the self-portraits below (I took the last picture though). Micaela is missing from these as she as a new BFF and spent the night over at her friend's house.

His poor lips are always chapped no matter what we do (the babysitter tries too).

Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T06:36:00.014-05:00

Well, I have to tell you - the dining facility (AKA DFAC) went all out for Thanksgiving this year. They put up some decorations a week or so ago and they looked nice, but I was not expecting the additional things they had out there today. It was awesome. There is a rule about no photography in the DFAC, but no one seemed to be paying attention to that today, so I took some pictures too.

There is an Army tradition where on Thanksgiving the Officers serve the food to the Soldiers, but here there are so many officers that they limited it to O-5 / LTC and above. I have to say, it was pretty cool to have MG Jones asking if I wanted gravy on my turkey. I've only had the chance to do this once as a Company Commander, but it's one of my favorite traditions. The picture near the bottom is my immediate supervisor (the one in the hat) just getting off his shift. They had a good time I think.

So I said the place looked great right? Well the food wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. They had a lot more options than what I chose to put on my plate (I didn't really feel like standing in line). The turkey was okay, the ham was okay, the cornbread stuffing was not so good, and the corn was overcooked. My coworkers made fun of me because I had more dessert on my tray than dinner food (two pieces of pie and some ice cream were added after this picture was taken).
I really can't be held responsible if the desserts are more satisfying than the meal... but it was still a fun time and I enjoyed having dinner with my "deployed family". Hope your Thanksgiving is just as enjoyable!

Group Photo

2010-11-18T12:59:00.009-05:00

It's almost the end of the deployment for the III Armored Corps out of Fort Hood, TX (who leave the end of January) so they arranged for all the staff sections to take "yearbook" photos. My staff section is funny- we took the official photo, a photo with our section hats, and then a photo with clown/rudolph noses (which is definitely my favorite). The other pictures were taken throughout the year. I'm not in any of them because I spend most of my time with the aviation guys over in another staff section, but I thought I'd share the pictures anyways. It kind of sucks that everyone is getting ready to leave in January and I'll still have to stay another month, but I know that last month is just going to fly by with all the new guys (out of Fort Bragg) just learning how to do their jobs and figure everything out.

Running

2010-10-18T12:16:00.004-05:00

Things here in Iraq are slow these days. I think that's a good thing. But the result is that I have a little more time on my hands for extracurricular activities, of which there are only a few I like doing. Every night I talk to Kurt, take a shower, then either read my Sony E-reader or I watch one of the TV shows Doug copied for me. Sometimes on the weekends I do something special like go to the VBC Cigar Club night or go to an MWR concert. But more often than not I do something completely contrary to cigar smoking - running. I don't particularly like running, but it feels good when it's over and there is a group that I run with that makes it more fun. They do a lot of races over here (at no cost) that are kind of fun and I normally get free t-shirts out of the deal. One of the public affairs officers here took these pictures and sent them to me so I thought I'd share. These were after some 5K races. I haven't seen the pictures that were taken after the half-marathon, but if I can find them I'll post them too.

Birthday

2010-09-19T02:33:00.007-05:00

Well, September 16th was my 29th birthday and it kind of sucked (worked from 7am-11pm)... but September 17th was a great day, so I'm going to call that my birthday this year :) I had a briefing in the morning that went very well (very relieved), so I basically took the afternoon off, went to the gym and just did menial tasks. My roommate had made plans for us to go out to the Turkish Restaurant on base for dinner (my "birthday party"). They actually have pretty good pizza and it is just a completely different atmosphere from the dining facility. They even have fake palm trees outside with Christmas lights and a kind of cheezy fountain out on the patio. My aviation co-workers are all old and they wanted to eat early, so we went to eat and my roommate and her friends showed up later with a birthday cake and even some presents. She got me two huge Toblerone chocolate bars and two CDs from the PX (hmm.. I wonder why she got two of everything). I don't typically like sheet cake, but the one she got was actually really good. I'll probably have some of the leftovers with lunch today. My aviation boss thankfully remembered to bring a camera, because I just never remember to bring mine.

Update

2010-07-11T13:08:00.005-05:00

Okay, I know you are all probably tired of seeing pictures of Al Faw Palace, but it’s kind of like the movie Groundhog Day here so I really don’t have much else that I can show you. For those I haven’t really talked to, here’s what “Groundhog Day” normally entails:

Wake up at 5am and meet co-workers for a run or gym time. I head to the dining facility (DFAC) at 7:30 for breakfast (usually cereal, but they also make great pancakes). Get to work around 8am for the morning update followed by meetings. Work in one of my cubicles (usually involving Outlook, Excel, or Powerpoint) from 10-12. Back to the DFAC for lunch (the caesar salad and the gyros are my favorite, and I usually get some soft serve after+). If it is a slow day I might go to the gym again after lunch, but normally it is back to work for meetings or computer work until around 5:30-6pm. Then back to the DFAC for dinner (I have whatever looks good for dinner, and then some chocolate cheesecake). Then back to work. I try not to “work” too much after dinner because I’m just not productive, so that’s when I clean up, clear my inbox and make my to-do lists for the next day. I usually go home around 7:30-8pm. I check my emails, talk to Kurt for 30 minutes, take a shower, and get to sleep around 10. And repeat. The days are long, but the weeks go by really fast.

Every once and a while we get things that spice-up the day such as Vice President Biden’s visit. It was pretty cool that he came to visit, but it had its downside too. My coworkers had a lot of extra work to do planning his aviation transportation, so the office was a little crazy the week or two prior. And then of course he came in on Sunday which is my only half-day off, so missing that kind of sucked. I did get to see him up close and personal at the DFAC, but I was in the middle of eating my ice cream and I didn’t want it to melt so I didn’t bother to get up and have a picture taken like everyone else. It was funny though seeing our 3-star General having to follow him around like a Private where ever he went and stand there patiently while people took pictures (everybody has a boss right?).

And every once and I while I get to sneak away and do something fun. Uncle Kracker came to visit just before the VP and I took one of my coworkers (an old guy who didn’t know who Uncle Kracker was) with me to see the concert. The posters over on my side of the airfield had the wrong time on them so we got there an hour early, but that meant that we got really good seats (MWR put out a few plastic chairs on the basketball court, everyone else either brought their own or had to stand). The concert was really good, he played a lot of his popular songs and he played a lot of other people’s popular songs as well. I meant to take my camera, but I forgot since I left straight from work. Okay, this next part is a little funny. I’m normally decent with maps and directions and once I have been somewhere I can normally remember my way. Well, after the concert we went to meet some friends on a part of the base I had only been to once, and that time I was in the backseat, and it was dark. Well, we found our way to the restaurant we were going to, but on the way home we missed a turn. We saw the guard shack of to our left as we were going in, but we missed the left turn on the way out and went past that guard shack through the gate instead. There should be some big sign or something that says “leaving Victory base or entering Baghdad” but there isn’t. I had been out that way once before (on a convoy with a General and some gunners) so I recognized pretty quickly that we had done something wrong (plus the signs for Route Irish kind of gave it away). My coworker was a little quicker than I was, I wouldn’t have known what to do next, but as soon as I said something was wrong, he did a U-turn and we were going back through the gate. Not a big deal, we didn’t make it more than a couple hundred feet outside the gate, but it was pretty funny in hindsight. I’m going to take a map with me next time and I’ll pay more attention to the guard shacks.

Okay, my half-day off is almost over so I’ll leave talking about my “new” old job for next time. On a good note – only four weeks until my R&R!

Pictures

2010-06-11T22:57:00.008-05:00

FUOPians = people who work in FUture OPerations

The made me stand in the back because I'm taller than most of them :)

The entrance to the Al Faw Palace where I work

A picture from the roof of the palace. It was a little tricky finding our way up there (we found what we think was used as a torture room on the way) but it has a great view.

A picture of the JVB or Joint Vistors Bureau (our local hotel) at night. This the view from the balcony where we relax and unwind at night.

These are the fish that live in the lake that surrounds the palace. I've seen them eat whole bagels, a birthday cake and even a small duckling. Yet, I couldn't catch anything when I went fishing...

Fly Tying

2010-05-29T14:45:00.005-05:00

So I'll elaborate on the whole experience of fly-tying later, but I will say that I was lured into this event by the pizza and non-alcoholic St. Pauli's Girl (you just can't get normal pizza at the dining facility). Don't be expecting any fishing stories tomorrow though, I'm sleeping in! This is for decoration only :)

My Fly

and the Flys I got from the instructor
But he says the one that I made is the one he's caught the most fish on... wonder if he was just being nice?

Extracurricular Activities

2010-05-16T13:20:00.006-05:00

Living in Baghdad is rough.... I work in FUOPS, or Future Operations, and all the guys there are either Majors or Lieutenant Colonels who have been through the next level of Army schooling that I haven't been to yet and we don't really have a lot in common (why I spend so much time in my "other" office with the aviators). I was here about a month before I actually ran into some other Captains (people with my same rank) who came up to FUOPS to help with a project. We started talking and one of the guys asked what I did for fun around here. Um... I work, video chat with my husband, and watch a little tv or read a book and then go to bed (and repeat). A pretty normal routine I thought, but when I asked him what he did, the list went on and on - salsa night, poker, Uganda night, cigar club, karaoke, etc. My first thought was that this guy must have an easy job (true) and he must not have a family (also true). But the conversation made me realized that I could participate in more of the MWR events around here. The next week I went with him and a bunch of other Captains from his battalion to the Zac Brown Band concert and we all had a good time. While I don't think I'll end up as out-going as that guy is, I have started to do more around here.

I've started working out with one of the aviation guys, alternating running and going to the gym, 6 days a week. While I'm not as good a runner as I was at Bragg, I'm doing pretty well considering I hadn't run in the two years prior to coming here. This weekend was particularly busy. On Saturday morning there was a Susan G. Komen 5K that I ran in with the soldiers from the aviation section, Saturday night I participated in the Victory Cigar Club's bi-weekly social and today I actually woke up (it's my only morning off) and went fly-fishing. Now, while I caught my first fish ever (at the age of 14) fly-fishing up in the Sierra Nevadas, apparently that skill is perishable because I just sucked today. I couldn't get the line to go straight for anything. I think I hooked myself twice and got the line tangled a half-dozen times. So no fish, but I did get some weeds. It was still nice to be outside and I enjoyed the company and the relaxing atmosphere. Not sure if I'll try again next Sunday or if I'll just sleep in... we'll see. The VBC Cigar club event was really fun too. It was out on a patio right up against one of the lakes and they had tables and chairs and lights around the palm trees, a band, and some BBQ. They have a box of free cigars for non-members and a box of really nice cigars for members. I'm not much of a cigar smoker (I hate how the smell lingers) but I don't mind having one to be social. I think I'll sign up to be a member next time just because I think Kurt will like the cool polo-shirt that comes with it. It was a popular event so there were plenty of people there that I enjoy talking to (I usually hate events where I have to make uncomfortable small talk). Unfortunately I don't really carry a camera around with me and when I do, it feels strange, so I don't take many pictures. I have one from after the race and one of the area we were fishing at (just outside the Palace). I didn't have my camera for the cigar club event, but I'll take it with me next time.

And because I know I'm going to forget tomorrow - Happy Birthday Mari!! Do you want me to bring you back something - a camel maybe?

My CHU

2010-04-25T03:02:00.010-05:00

The trailers we live in here are called CHUs which stands for Community Housing Units, I think. They are pretty similar to what we lived in at Balad, but my room is much smaller this time. I'm not complaining though, Amy (a friend from USC) reminds me that I could be in Afghanistan living a 15 person tent with 19 people. No thanks, I'm happy here. My half of the room is pretty simple - a bed, nightstand, wall-locker, plastic drawers, and a tuff bin that my roommate emptied out and is letting me use for storage (it's pretty empty right now). My roommate has a small fridge and a TV that she shares with me. She is an intelligence analyst, also 28 years old with two kids and a husband in the military, so we get along very well. Every Sunday I swiffer and dust, and change my linens, so here are pictures of my newly cleaned room :)

That's a cup of Starbuck Via coffee on the nightstand - my Sunday treat (thanks mom!)

Febreeze and wall-hooks make my uniforms wearable for about 3 days (at least until it gets really hot, then I'll just need to buy more uniforms)

I like getting pictures and cards!

The contractors wash and fold my laundry, but I just end up throwing it all in my messy wall-locker (some things don't change)

Work is going great. The work is just okay, but I really like the people I work with - they are really funny and we laugh a lot. In good humor they gave me a ton of crap (Doug would even have been impressed) when I misplaced my wedding band (I think I took it off when I was washing my hands, not something I normally do, and forgot about it) and had to buy this gem to replace it. The gold may be real, the diamond definitely isn't. I wanted just a band, but of course, no such luck. Micaela will have fun with it once I get a new one this summer.

The Palace

2010-03-09T11:45:00.016-05:00

These are my favorite parts of Al Faw Palace - the bathroom and the balcony.

The bathroom is crazy. You walk into this big square room with 12 sinks, 3 on each wall. There are two doors which lead to hallways which have 6 sinks each. Each hallway has 6 doors which lead to toilet rooms. Inside the toilet rooms are a toilet, a bidet (we use them to store toilet paper, and ANOTHER sink. Thats 12 toilets and 36 sinks - in ONE bathroom!

My other favorite part of the palace is the balcony. There are not too many places to access the balcony, so not many people get to go out there. Fortunately there is a door in the Air Ops office where I sometimes work. It's a huge balcony with large pillars and the buildings around the lake he made are pretty (even though they are run-down). It's quiet and pretty and the birds are always chirpping... just nice. The room my real office is in would be nice too (I heard it used to be Saddam's bedroom) but we put up a bunch of cubicles in there, so it takes away a little :)

The last pictures are ones I found on the internet, but they do the trick. The main room or rotunda has a really pretty chandalier and I have to go up the spiral staircases to the third/top floor to get to my offices (my legs get tired, but it's good for me). The big chair was a gift from Yasar Arafat to Hussein, but that's all I know, I should read the sign next to it sometime.

While I was looking for pictures on the internet I found this! -

There's a pool here! But don't get too excited, we work 7 days a week here at the palace :( and I think I'm the only one who leaves by 6pm, the rest of them stay till the wee hours. I'm sure I'll find one day to sneak away though and scout out the pool (if it does in fact exist).

Fun in the snow

2010-02-06T11:59:00.011-05:00

Well, this weekend Baltimore was supposed to get a ton of snow (there is still a blizzard warning) so we high-tailed it out of there and came up to PA where we got just over a foot of snow last night - perfect for sledding. Larry and Micaela were up early this morning getting the sled run started and Kurt has been and is STILL outside (4 hours now) improving the runs and making new ones. Apparently I'm a snow party pooper because I like to sled only until I get cold and then come inside and enjoy the warmth and the couch. I'm okay with that. I'll take more pictures throughout the weekend, but here are a few from this morning. Jon liked the snow a lot better with snow boots and a proper snow suit on. He had one faceplant and didn't like that much, but who does? :) The dogs The snow was so deep that the dogs could only run in places where we had made a trail so they got to run but couldn't run away.

Video Update

2010-01-31T15:36:00.003-05:00

The first video is Jon dancing to Yo Gaba Gaba. It's a little dark and it's sideways, I'll have to figure out how to fix that sometime, but you'll get the idea, it's funny. The second video is Jon and Micaela playing in the snow. It might actually be Jon's first time in the snow. He liked it until he got cold and then it wasn't fun anymore.

New House

2010-01-06T17:19:00.039-05:00

This is for Mari who has been bugging me about pictures. Today happens to be the first day the new house has looked put together (minus the furniture from storage in VA that is still enroute) AND we got our internet up and running today. I thought I would have a funny cross-country blog for everyone, but it was actually rather boring. We stopped every 2-5 hours to pee and let the dogs out, but while in the car, Micaela played or watched movies and the dogs just laid on their make-shift bed. It all went rather smoothly. Kurt drove most of the way and I took care of the dogs at every stop (it was under 30 degrees the entire time, so it was a bit chilly walking them in my fleece). We drove 15 hour days and actually made it across in 3 days and were able to have our furniture delivered a day early. I took pictures of the scenery, but they're pretty boring since AZ and TX are flat and most of the Appalachians was driven through at night. As for the house, it is definitely the biggest house we've had, there are a few things that need fixed, but our furniture fits really well and we can accommodate more visitors than we could in Virginia. The picture tour starts in the basement, then the first floor, then the upstairs.

Our PACKED minivan

The office downstairs has a small closet and a full bathroom

This is our movie room (still need some movie posters)

This is from the other direction showing our projector screen (Kurt has the screen set for about 7 feet), taken with the camera flash on

and with the flash off

Behind the movie room is what will be a play room (missing most of the toys right now)

Stairs leading to/from the basement

Our front door

Standing with my back to the front door, on the left is a half bath, the hallway to the family room and kitchen, and the stairs going to the basement (in the hallway)

Straight in front is the stairs leading upstairs to the bedrooms

And to the right is the formal living room (which we haven't really set up yet)

Just past the formal living room is the dining room (still waiting for the table to be delivered from storage). There is an archway separating the two, but they are almost one big room

From the dining room you can go into the kitchen

The kitchen is small, but there is a ton of cabinet space and the island helps

The glass door on the left goes to our patio and backyard

Standing with my back to the kitchen, it is open to the family room. We have another couch coming that will go against the wall on the left.

The patio - which will get used a lot once it warms up since all the carpeting in the house is new and we don't like eating in the dining room

The playset in the backyard (there is a storage shed in the backyard, but we haven't checked it out yet)

From the family room/kitchen area, the hallway leading back to the front door (on the right is the garage, on the left is the stairs to the basement)

The starway (it took a bit of skill on Kurt's part to get these pictures up in this really high stairwell)

The guest room (missing the furniture that is coming from storage)

Jon's room, haven't finished unpacking yet

Micaela's new room/bed/sofa - she was just starting to clean when I came up to take this picture. She loves her bunk bed and her desk area (any adult would be claustrophobic, but I bet Caroline will like it)

Her new sofa that pulls out to a twin bed

Her bench/chest that her Pappy made for her. On the wall you can't see is her closet and a small bookshelf with a TV.

I love that the washer and dryer are upstairs, but the laundry room is far too small to hold our mountains of laundry that always need to be done.

The Master bedroom is really big, so I had to take three pictures

The walk in closet is HUGE, so that is where we are hiding our mountain of laundry for now (it's on the right so you can't see it) :)

This TV wouldn't fit anywhere else, so it had to go in the bedroom - darn :)

AND finally, the master bathroom. Its smaller than the one in Capo, but the tub is nice.

Okay, that's it. It you want to see more, then come and visit us!

Holiday Fun

2009-12-10T15:49:00.021-05:00

Here are some pictures from Thanksgiving, the Montrose Christmas Parade, and various other fun activities!

Our Thanksgiving Feast (this picture was taken after everyone's first serving!)

I love that it was warm enough for us to eat outside!

Aunt Kris and chubby baby Olive

Jon was happy playing with Aunt Shellie's Birthday balloon

Out of ALL THE TOYS at Grandma Ginny's, Jon chose the fly-swatter to play with (gross, I know, but it really kept him entertained)

Micaela and her friend Riley walking down to our float (Riley doesn't like her picture taken, so I had to be sneaky)

It's a little hard to see, but that guy is on stilts, that's fire on the back of the truck, and they all have those flaming batons - it was cool

One of the Water District's parade vehicles

We were at the back of the parade, so we had about 45 minutes to kill, so we took pictures of everyone. Micaela and Riley were on the float in front of us, so I didn't get any pictures of them.

He's cute even when he's sick

Kurt pestering the girls in the back of the minivan after the parade

On our way home we got a great view of Disneyland's fireworks show, the shoot them right off the freeway

We were at the Irvine Spectrum picking up a few things and Jon got to go on his first carousel ride (at least I think it's his first, can't really remember)

Last night Miceala was playing her DS (Isaac came over and got her interested in it) and Jon just crawled up on her lap to see what was going on

She was very nice and even let him play a little

Bass Pro Shop

2009-12-02T16:30:00.012-05:00

Here are some fun pictures from our trip to the Bass Pro Shop.

Isaac was wearing a headset, so Jon wanted one too

Kurt wanted me to take a picture of the entrance to show his dad

Isaac was pretty good at the remote controlled cars

Nose.
This didn't quite turn out, but the store below was impressive

Nothing says "I'm bad" like a pink pop-gun :)

Jon didn't like Santa so much

Guess who found this decoration? They're cute / funny and the teeter-totter actually moves :)

Trick or Treat

2009-11-03T00:18:00.016-05:00

Vampire Micaela

(she bought this pretty red wig to go with the costume and had a blast playing with it, at least until she got her "extensions" which is what she is wearing in the picture :)

Jon is a skeleton (the pants are somewhere in the depths of our storage unit) and I am a tourist (my camera was being used to take this picture)

One of the carnival games at CVC's Light the Night Carnival

A really cool, really long slide

Micaela and I both liked the Ferris Wheel, it went around really fast

A view of the carnival from the top of the Ferris Wheel

Jon was really snotty(sick) and miserable to start with, and then I let him get a bloody nose on his first ride... oh well.

Isaac made the perfect Robin. This is the only picture I have of him standing still, he was jumping and leaping all over the place

One of the many bounce house things

A better picture of Jon

After the carnival we came home and went trick or treating with a girl from Micaela's class who happen to stop by the house just as we were leaving

A neighbor's house, best decorated place on the street (ours came in second)

Our house with ghosts and two huge blow-ups and candy bowls that grabbed at your hands

Pumpkin Patch Kitchen

2009-10-30T21:31:00.019-05:00

Kurt requested some pictures to show his parents, so here they are:

My mom and I had fun taking Jon to the Zoomars petting zoo/pumpkin patch. Thanks Kristen for the cute clothes!

He actually lifted this pumpkin and carried it over to me

Shoving the carrot into the bunny's mouth

A concrete bunny

Goats are fun

This was a few too many goats for Jon's taste

I needed to take pics of Micaela and the kitchen, so I combined the two :)

Being goofy

She wanted Grandma to see the hair "extensions" she bought with her allowance.
They match her "natural" color :)

In progress, but much better than it was

Kurt's hanging coffee pot

U2

2009-10-29T21:48:00.021-05:00

Okay, so Mari said I need to blog about U2 in order to hear about Mrytle Beach, so here it goes in one long, run-on paragraph...

So this U2 concert sold out before the tickets went on sale to the public. Kurt has a U2.com membership, but had forgotten to renew it a few years ago, so he was still considered a "new" member and didn't get priority status. What that all means, is that we had to find tickets on ebay/stubhub/etc. and we had to pay 3 times the face value. But how often do you get to see your favorite band so close to where you live, with willing babysitters nearby? So we got tickets at a "relatively" cheap price for how close we were to the stage (row 9). We had heard that parking was going to be a nightmare, so we left super-early for the show. I was able to give Kurt a driving tour of L.A. (Rodeo Drive, Sunset Blvd, Hollywood Blvd) before we headed over to Pasadena. We got there early enough to get parking near the stadium and we spend the next few hours just hanging out. It was too hot to be out in the sun, so we set up our lawn chairs under a tree near a water hazard (parking is on a golf course) and I took a nap while Kurt played games on his phone and listened to the band doing their sound checks. It was very uneventful, but I think that's what made it so nice. There were huge lines to get into the Stadium, but Kurt and I found a gate that was not be used and walked right in. Our seats seemed great. We were at the same height as the stage and really close to the VIP tunnel, but one of the legs of the set blocked our view of the main stage. The camera on the other side of the leg happened to have extra equipment, so we really couldn't see anything. So that's why our tickets were so "cheap". But it was a 360 tour, so there was an outer stage which was used a lot and the backstage which was also used a lot, so we saw a fair amount of the action, but next time we'll choose the higher seats with a front view of the stage. From the videos online, it was a totally different (and better) show from the front. Anyways, Fergie and the Black Eyed Peas opened and they sounded great and they got the crowd pumped up. Kurt was really excited when Slash from Guns N' Roses came out for a guest appearance and played Sweet Child O'Mine. It was awesome. I have a video that I'll post down below. In between the opener and U2, Kurt and I played "spot the celebrity". We were near the VIP room so we saw a ton of people, but only got a few good pictures. It was fun. Finally, U2 came on and they were great, they sound just like they do on their CDs. The stage was impressive and it was just an awesome show. We left during the last song and made it to the car pretty easily and had only a small wait to get out and get home. I'll post some pictures, but it won't really do it justice.

Before the show started, see how the camera/plastic shield block the stage :(

Fergie and the Black Eyed Peas up on the screen

All the pictures turned out blurry because using a flash didn't work, but you get the idea

I think this was during a tribute to Aung...something (see here)

The stage was very cool

That's Bono, he was closer than he appears

Now it's your turn to play spot the celebrity - it's not easy!

Explosion

2009-09-16T00:21:00.002-05:00

Doesn't everyone's office look like this?

Lots of Pictures

2009-09-10T13:08:00.019-05:00

Here are some pictures of Jon, Micaela, baby Olive, and the occasional Higerd girl.

Jon wanting to be more like his dad

Jon wearing the shirt grandma weaver bought him

Maybe he wants to be more like grandpa

He figured out how to climb the ladder in the playhouse on his second try

Lets hope he doesn't crash like his dad

Micaela and her little niece

Dad and Jon at the Fair

Mom is a saint for taking these two tweens with her

I didn't want to hold/contaminate Olive so I settled for being in close proximity

Dad and Olive

Mom and Olive

The proud dad

Caroline and the most patient dogs ever

Summer Vacation

2009-07-14T11:41:00.017-05:00

I kind of forgot to take pictures while we were in Virginia, but believe me that we all had a great time. Micaela had play-dates every day and even had two sleepovers! Kurt and I got to play poker twice and had some excellent dinners thanks to our friends. We helped Georgia set up for Will's birthday party which was quite the success. Will and Jon didn't really know what to make of each other, but Jon did enjoy all of Will's toys. Georgia has a funny video of Will singing and playing his guitar while Jon is playing the drums. I'll try to get it off her and post it here later. We certainly miss living in Virginia.

While Micaela really enjoyed seeing her friends in Virginia, Jon is definitely more into the Pennsylvania lifestyle. As soon as we got out of the car ran into the yard and started playing. Jon has been very easy to entertain between wandering around the house and playing with his cousins trucks, swinging under the tree, playing in the small play structure, riding his cousins tricycles, and just running around in the grass. It helps that everyone has been sleeping well here and that the weather is just perfect right now. And don't worry about Micaela, she just LOVES her Grandma and Pappy and all the attention they give her. She's been playing in the woods, picking berries, climbing trees, playing in the 'crick', and she spent her first night tent-camping with her Aunt Kristen and two cousins Nicolas and Kendell.

Aside from a brief encounter with a bat, I'm having a great time as well since the kids have been so easy to take care of. I haven't really gotten any schoolwork done so when I get home in August I'll have my work cut out for me, but I work better under pressure anyways :)

I don't really feel like providing captions, maybe Mari will help -

We bough Jon some matchbox cars and now he is learning how to make car sounds, can you hear him spitting? :)

Mari's Pictures

2009-06-22T22:03:00.016-05:00

So I guess Mari forgot that she was going to blog about Sesame Street Live, or maybe she just wanted to wait until she had the pictures, either way, here they are. I chose the pictures where it looked like they were both being perfect angels, but who knows what really happened. Good job with the elmo outfits Mari.

The next series of pictures are of Caroline's cool cousins. Apparently she likes hanging out with older kids.

Micaela and Caroline at Disneyland

Caroline and her cool cousin Beth

Isaac showing Caroline his videogames

This is definitely payback. Mari got these yellow polka-dot high heels for Micaela the last time she was out here (Micaela asked me to get them for her and I refused). All I heard for the next few days was clack-clack-clack. She wore the stupid shoes everywhere and asked me if she could wear them to the park, the grocery store, etc. I finally gave in and she stopped wearing them only after falling off the little 6 inch concrete wall we have in the back yard. Now it's Caroline's turn to wear them and make Mari's hair go grey.

I like these pictures of the kids because they look so calm and it seems like they play together so nicely. We all know it doesn't exactly work like that, there is a lot of pushing, a lot of "sorry anabelle" hugs, and lessons to be taught in sharing all around, but it is definitely more fun with more kids (especially when they are someone elses).

New pictures

2009-05-22T21:06:00.011-05:00

We fixed up the backyard a little and set up a pool that mom and mari got for $15. It's been pretty fun so far. Jon is almost 1 now, so I thought I'd take some pictures to show how big he is getting. His favorite activity is opening and closing doors, so that's why you see so many of him behing them.

An oldie, but a goodie

2009-05-20T22:20:00.003-05:00

I found this while browsing through the files on my computer... Mari is quite the fighter :-D

When Uncle Doug Babysits...

2009-05-10T00:50:00.003-05:00

I left for 10 minutes to go get some lemons and when I came back this is what I found... at least he has good taste :)

Doesn't everyone have a baby with an empty beer bottle picture? Wait, it was empty, right?

Two more pictures

2009-04-24T21:10:00.003-05:00

At Grandma Ginny's:

Jon's Day and Micaela's Fashion Show

2009-04-24T20:49:00.024-05:00

Jon's Day (starting from after his morning nap):

Doesn't everyone's park have a view like this?

The girl is destined for a career in drama :)

Easter Egg Hunt

2009-04-11T12:31:00.014-05:00

First, here are pics from Isaac's Birthday at Chuck E Cheese

A whole 15 minutes of fun:

As big as a house

2009-03-31T23:06:00.002-05:00

A pregnant friend of mine was telling me how 'huge' she is getting. Well she started at 5' and 100 lbs (a guess) so I doubt she can beat me in week 41! This picture just reminds me that once was enough :)

As Mari Requested

2009-03-05T13:41:00.003-05:00

Blogging Break

2009-02-23T11:20:00.002-05:00

I'm going to take a break from blogging. I need to start really working on my thesis so that I can finish in time. I'll still update facebook (since I'm addicted) if you are interested in catching quicker updates.

Adios.

Fun times

2009-02-18T22:43:00.008-05:00

I realized this time around how much different my life is when Kurt is around. While not necessarily easier, it is definitely much less stressful and much more enjoyable. We've been keeping ourselves pretty busy with all sorts of things. I'm going to steal Mari's idea of using bullets, because I don't want to miss Lost tonight:

* Kurt took me out for sushi and a movie (yeah date night!)
* He also bought Micaela and I flowers and a chocolate cake
* Two days later he bought an even bigger chocolate cake since the first disappeared so fast
* Kurt, Micaela, Jon and I went to the Orange County Swap Meet where I bought the BFG :)
* Jon decided to finally start crawling
* Jon then got a double ear infection and strep throat, but doesn't really act any different
* Micaela decided that she likes playing video games with her dad
* Grad school is still going and a thesis proposal has been started (one sentence so far)
* Kurt decided the dining room needed a makeover and I agreed
* The entry-way got fixed up as well
* And today went to Target for the first time in forever (I secretly like shopping)

It's really nice doing things. When Kurt is gone I tend to stay home and just do the essentials, which isn't bad except that it makes me feel like my whole life is being spent in this house (not exactly the CA experience I want to remember). Here are a few pictures from throughout the week:

Hoecakes

2009-02-06T10:44:00.008-05:00

I know what you're thinking - hoecakes sound like food and Liz doesn't cook, this should be a good blog. Well, hope I don't disappoint, here we go:

Last week Micaela came home and told me that she volunteered us to make Hoecakes for an old-fashioned breakfast they were having in her class. She knew I had to take care of Jon, but at the time Kurt was home so she though he could make them with her. I knew Kurt was going to be leaving , but I still told her that we could make them (secretly hoping Kurt could make them before he left and we could save them for a few days). Well, when Kurt left I felt exhausted and overwhelmed by all there was to do (there really wasn't much, but I was tired so it seemed like a lot). I was stressed out by these hoecakes (when was I going to make them? what if they got screwed up? etc), and then the day before they were due Micaela told me that she volunteered me to make twice as many as originally planned... great. Thankfully my mom and Shellie brought me back from my craziness and explained that pancakes are easy and even making 40 won't take long and that the purpose of this is to have fun, not to make a great meal. So I set my alarm for 6am knowing that I would probably be up at 5:30 with Jon anyways. I was shocked when it was my alarm and not Jon that woke me up (he actually slept until I woke him at 7:30!). So I got out all the stuff for the hoecakes and then got Micaela. First I read the recipe that was given to me (I learned from the cookie ordeal) and I caught a mistake - in the ingredients section it calls for salt, but in the write-up it says sugar-- which was right? I headed to the internet to find out, but each recipe was different so I decided to stick with the salt. So we mixed everything together and Micaela got to crack all the eggs. What we got was a yellow chunky soupy mixture that looked nothing like pancake batter. But they weren't supposed to be pancakes, they were hoecakes, so I went with it. I made one just to see what would happen. It was real thin and tasted awful. I mean it was like eating chicken food or what I imagine chicken food tastes like. You were supposed to mix it with as few strokes as possible, but that meant that there were chunks of cornmeal that really didn't taste good. I didn't know what to do, so I called mom who had a few suggestions - add bisquick, or flour and some sugar won't hurt. So I did, each time I made a new batch I added something from the above list. I was nervous about straying from the recipe so I only added a little at a time, so the change was gradual. The result was that the hoecakes on the bottom of the serving tray are probably most authentic, but taste like wallpaper. By the time I got to the very last batch I had finally added enough sugar to make it edible to an 8 year old. Whatever kids are first in line will be happy, but I feel sorry for those who get the hoecakes on the bottom. Oh well. At least it looks good right?

Football!

2009-02-01T14:27:00.006-05:00

We're excited for the superbowl today! Go Steelers!

Jon "Polamalu" Weaver (minus the hair)

Milestones

2009-01-27T08:49:00.004-05:00

So I haven't blogged in a while because for a while my life was boring (especially after going from having a full house to an empty house). Nothing really exciting was going on. I did the single-mom without a job thing for three weeks and almost went crazy. I don't think I can ever not-work unless I have school or something else to entertain me. I love the kids, but being around the house all day with them (except for short walks with Shellie) them was exhausting. I don't know how you moms do it. But now Kurt is home (yeah!) and school has started (yeah!). I'm excited about my classes this semester, but the workload is going to be a lot more than last semester so I'll have to find some discipline from somewhere. Wish me luck.

Enough about myself, and onto the kids. Well there's not much to say about Micaela except that she's doing awesome. All her school progress reports are outstanding and she seems to like school. Right now math is even her favorite subject (a big change from last year). I'm excited that she's almost to the stage where she likes finishing longer books because there are so many good kids books that I remember. Maybe I'll have to go back and read some with her. On to Jon- today is a historic day. Today I learned that Jon is captivated by Baby Einstein (yeah!). I hadn't put on any baby movies since Mari left because frankly, I watched them more than the kids and was burnt out. But this morning Jon got up earlier than normal and I thought I'd give it a shot. He loves it. This is the first time that he'll sit and watch for more than a few seconds at a time. While I don't want to raise a kid who sits on the couch and watches tv all day, it's nice to have the option, especially so early in the morning. Other developments include learning to pull himself to standing using the furniture (and getting bumps and bruises when it doesn't work) and crawling. Now with the crawling, he was getting up on his hands and knees a lot, mostly to climb over things, but he wasn't actually crawling for me, he preferred the Army low-crawl to get around. But one day I went to the YMCA to work out and took him to their daycare. There's a window from the cardio room upstairs that looks down on the daycare so I got to watch him play which was really cool. You can imagine my surprise when I saw him crawling all over the place down there! I took him home to see if he would do it at home and he did for a little while (Shellie got to witness it), but now he's back to low-crawling. Maybe his big belly is weighing him down? I don't mind the slower crawl for now, it makes him easier to chase after. He loves standing up on the furniture and I'm sure will soon earn the nick-name of Jonny Monkey Chang. Fun times are in my future I'm sure. Okay, he's trying to climb on the fireplace, I should go. Adios.

Giving in

2009-01-16T15:43:00.005-05:00

Yesterday I was at Costco filling the prescription for my strep throat medicine when the lady in line behind me said "you can tell she's going to be tall like her mom". I took a look at Jon, he was wearing a white onsie with baby blue trim that said I love mommy on the front in different colors with brown and baby blue pants. Now I know that it's impossible to tell baby boys and girls apart based on looks. That's why you take a guess based on the clothes. I didn't hold it against the lady, but when I went to dress Jon today I put him in a brown and white striped onsie with brown stretchy pants. Brown in definitely boyish. Then I went to Walmart where the cashier told me that "she needs a bow in her hair". WTF!!! I was seriously perplexed. Maybe it's because I bought some baby girl socks for a friend? But I also bought boy socks for Jon, so that's not really a good excuse. I guess it's time to give in and put away the onsie outfits and start dressing Jon in all the real clothes (jean/khaki pants, button up shirts, polo shirts, etc) that I've gotten from various friends and relatives. Ugh. :)

On another note, today Micaela had a "snow day". When I saw this on her school calendar I thought it might mean a day off of school since that's what it means in Mammoth. But no, not in Southern California. While the rest of the country freezes, we just pretend it's freezing by wear snow clothes to school. For Micaela, that meant matching a scarf and boots with her mini-skirt and t-shirt outfit. I made her put on the jacket too so she didn't look completely ridiculous. I have to meet her when school ends to give her money for a snow-cone. I'd bet quite a few of the kids in her class have never actually seen real snow. Weird.

And sort of random - I took this picture at the hotel we stayed at in Arizona. Kurt told me that he felt like he was pooping in the middle of an old-west town (which I still think is funny).

Beach Bonfire... almost

2009-01-07T23:15:00.010-05:00

Since Tuesday was Kurt's last full night here before heading out to PA we decided to do something special - go to the beach and roast hotdogs and marshmellows over a fire. Mari and I packed a cooler and had everything ready to go, the kids all had their naps, and Micaela finished her homework really fast. Since it's January we didn't have to compete for a fire ring and we found a nice spot away from everyone else. It was perfect. We got there early enough that the kids were able to run around and play on the beach and eat the sand (Anabelle seems to really like it). Kurt was in charge of starting up the fire. He looked at what I had packed and then said "where's the kindling? Haven't you ever made a fire before?" Oops. I guess I thought about kindling and then just hoped that we could use a lot of cardboard instead. I guess it doesn't work that way. We ended up cooking the hotdogs at home and roasting the marshmellows over the fire in the living room fireplace, but the time spent playing on the beach and watching the sunset was still work the trip.

Trips

2009-01-02T15:25:00.015-05:00

I've been so busy here that I haven't really had time to blog. Before Christmas I went on a weekend trip to Arizona with Kurt. We went skiing at the Sunrise Ski Resort (not as good as Mammoth, but the snow and weather conditions were perfect) and then went to Sedona (which has absolutely beautiful landscape) for two nights. It was a great break, thanks to all the family for watching the kids!

We've spent most of the time since then here at the house or at the park, but one day we took a trip to the Santa Ana zoo and got some great pictures.

This is Caroline's way of telling Mari she wants to ride the elephant

Elephant poo

Kurt and his niece Anabelle

Micaela didn't want to ride the elephant so we made her :)

Fight On!

2009-01-02T14:49:00.010-05:00

I could have put Merry Christmas or Happy New Year as the title, but the Rose bowl game was just so great! My favorite part was actually walking to the game behind the bands and watching the B-2 Stealth Bomber fly over, but it was nice that we won too :)

Christmas was great. In true Erdman fashion I would descibe it as organized chaos. For the past few years I've gone to Kurt's parent's house in PA with Micaela being the only child, so this year took a little adjusting but was really fun. It took ALL DAY for the kids to open their presents and mom, Shellie, and Kris did a great job of feeding everyone who came though.
New Years was just how I wanted it - early. We watched the daredevil truck and motorcycle guys do crazy stunts at midnight (EST), popped some noise makers outside, and I was in bed at 10pm. I'm definitely getting old.

The Rose Parade and Rose Bowl were awesome! I hadn't been to the parade in years so I was really excited and surprised by how easy it was to get there and see everything. The floats weren't quite as impressive as I thought they were when I was little, but it was cool none-the-less. Like I mentioned earlier the Rose Bowl was awesome. Kurt, Mari, Grant (Mari's brother-in-law) and I all got tickets to go. We left the parade early so that we would make it to the game in time to tailgate. We ended up having just enough time to park, grab some hot-dogs, watch the band, take some pictures, and then find our seats. I was in a section that had both SC and Penn State fans. I have to admit, Penn State has better fans than we do. They were energetic the entire game and seemed to have a lot more fun tailgating. But I got to cheer the most with a 38-24 win! Fight On!

This picture doesn't do the B-2 justice, it was HUGE!

Fight On Pete!

Taken at the parade

Overwhelmed

2008-12-18T01:44:00.005-05:00

I think this picture accurately portrays why I haven't been blogging. Those papers on the desk are references for a 3000 word essay I'm writing on ontology, epistemology and methodology in reference to qualitative research methods in geography. Sounds fun, huh? I'm writing it in my spare time (after taking care of Jon and Micaela, eating, going on the balcony again and again with Caroline, socializing, and doing minimal cleaning). Well yes, that is facebook on my computer screen, not my paper... I guess I'm not that overworked since I still have time to procrastinate :) More to come after all the schoolwork is finished.

Stealing Mari's Thunder

2008-12-10T01:10:00.019-05:00

Between her bad luck and poor health, Mari hasn't had time to blog (plus all the pics were on my camera) so I'm going to steal her thunder and put up pictures from our night at the boat parade. Every year Dana Point Harbor puts on a Christmas boat light parade where 50+ boats sail around the harbor all lit up. My mom and sister-in-law Shellie did some planning/coordinating and had a picnic dinner with hot chocolate and baileys/kalua all set up. We had dinner and drinks and then the show started, it was perfect (except for the dog poop that everyone seemed to step in). We had a large, fun group with Mari and her girls, Bob and his family, my parents, my family (minus Kurt), plus some of Mari's friends. The pictures will tell the rest:

Caroline had some baby-crack (aka whipped cream)

and then must have walked/ran around the harbor 10 times

Care walking Dad

Care walking Mom

Care walking Joey

Care walking Lindsey

Bob and Isaac

Mari teaching Jon bad habits

How Jon looks after too much of the above (kidding)

Me teaching Jon good habits

This isn't what it looks like, Bob has sciatica and Shellie was giving his leg a massage (wait, that doesn't sound right either...) and the placement of the beer is just a coincidence.

Mari and her friends

Shellie being... Shellie

Dad with his hands full

Mari and Anabelle

Micaela enjoying the show and the caffiene that kept her up late enough to watch it

And finally, a picture from last week of Jon and Anabelle playing at an activity table

Thanksgiving

2008-11-30T23:47:00.015-05:00

I don't really feel like writing right now, but the pictures from Thanksgiving will give you a good idea of how great it was:

The kids played

Micaela almost figured out how to play "Mary had a little lamb"

Grandpa Dennis babysat Jon

Aunt Shellie was the Master Chef who prepared the delicious meal (shown here wearing a birthday hat that Micaela made for her)

All of Shellie's helpers: Bob, Grandma Ginny, her mom Cheryl (who flew in from Isreal that morning!)

Getting ready to eat (like how I set the table with our fine china, aka paper plates?)

Isaac skipped the pie and went straight for the cool whip

And Jon was just happy

Jon Update

2008-11-19T23:20:00.007-05:00

As requested, Jon video and pictures to accompany my last blog (well, three blogs ago):

Gremlin re-appearance

2008-11-19T10:43:00.002-05:00

For those of you new to my blog or not familiar with the Gremlins, here's the link to an earlier blog.

I found this note taped to Jon's door last night and thought it was really funny. I think Micaela figured out that anyone can be a gremlin, although I always stuck to my story and told her that I wasn't the gremlins (white lies don't hurt, right?)

Not meant to be

2008-11-16T22:13:00.006-05:00

Kurt tells me that I have no business being in the kitchen, and he's probably right. For a few days now I have been craving chocolate chip cookies. I tried to get one at Starbucks on Thursday but they were all out. I didn't have anything to do this afternoon, so I thought I'd take a shot at baking. I asked my chef-extraordinaire friend Misty for a recipe and she recommended this one from Martha Stewart. The ingredient list was short and it looked pretty simple, just what I needed. I didn't have unsalted butter, flour, or chocolate so I stopped by the store after picking Micaela up from a birthday party and got those things. I laid all the ingredients out on the counter and after dinner Micaela and I started baking. All seemed to be going well. The recipe didn't say whether or not to grease the pan, so I asked Shellie who recommended parchment paper (what is that?) and then just told me that I wouldn't hurt to lightly grease them. I had 6 cookies on one sheet and 9 on the other ready to go in the oven. Expecting something to go wrong, I put the sheet with 6 cookies in first and set the timer. While waiting for the cookies to bake I started to clean up. When I got to the unopened package of butter I knew I had done something wrong. I held it up and said, "I think I was supposed to use this" to Micaela. I didn't remember it being in the recipe so I went back and looked. I didn't see it, but then Micaela read the first line to me - melt the chocolate AND BUTTER.... oops. Too late now. It said to bake the cookies for 12-15 minutes, but I set the timer for 10 just to be safe. I ended up checking after 7 and the cookies were already burned on the bottom. I didn't know that the oven here cooks 50 degrees hotter than what you set it. There is a separate thermometer in the oven which I could have looked at, but I'm still claiming that this one is not my fault. I turned the temperature down 100 degrees (to be safe) and put the next batch in. I only let this batch go 10 minutes and then I took them out thinking they might be done. The recipe says to let them cool for 10 minutes on the pan and then move to a cooling rack to cool even more. That's B.S. What person with a sweet tooth can sit and watch cookies cool?!?! I waited about 10 seconds, moved them to a plate, waited 10 more seconds and then tried the first batch. The chocolate taste overwhelmed the burned bottom so they weren't completely ruined. I waited and waited for the second batch to cool and harden so that we could take some of these cookies down to Bob and Shellie. When they didn't harden I got impatient and just stacked them on a plate and walked down. I told Bob I slightly burnt the first batch, but I though the second batch was alright. That's when he said, well they're not cooked in the middle. Ah, so that's why they wouldn't harden... I'm a moron. All in all, they weren't great, but they satisfied my chocolate craving and I won't feel guilty the next time I buy cookies from the bakery (much less of a hassle). Here are pictures of Martha's cookies and my cow-pie look-alike cookies:

And, my new favorite picture (I caught them both by surprise):

New Tricks and No TV

2008-11-14T22:37:00.003-05:00

Jon has mastered rolling for a while now, back to belly, belly to back, both sides, etc., and he's also quite good at spinning himself around in circles, but today he figured out a new trick - how to scoot forward. All it took was a toy that he really wanted too far out in front of him. But it wasn't any toy, he couldn't care less about all the expensive baby toys, he wants the all-in-one remote that works our entertainment system. I tried to trick him by giving him an old remote, but he knew the difference. Go figure.

My sister is always telling me that I need to censor what Micaela watches on TV. It started with us letting her watch Mean Girls (we thought it was kid friendly, it's definitely a TEEN OR OLDER movie). She's also accidentally watched a few other things that were a little too mature, but in general we stick to Disney or Nick. In the mornings I like to watch the news which is not all that kid friendly for someone who is actually old enough to understand things like murder, but it's usually boring enough that she goes into the kitchen to eat her breakfast. This week though she is grounded from watching any TV so she took a little more interest in my adult shows than normal. I've had to refrain from watching news (after the TODAY show did a segment on high-end prostitutes), sitcoms, the comedy channel, anything on E!, and sometimes even HGTV. I'm so sick of Sportscenter and can't wait until she is un-grounded so that she'll be occupied somewhere other than the living room where I want to watch my shows. Is that bad?

Mari's blog comments

2008-11-10T22:17:00.003-05:00

Until Mari get's around to taking new pictures of Caroline, here are some old ones I found:

Falling behind

2008-11-10T18:35:00.012-05:00

Because of Veteran's Day and my teacher's busy schedules, I'm in the middle of a full week off of school. On my first day off I worked pretty hard cleaning the house and doing all the small things I never feel like doing. I was so proud of myself that I took Saturday and Sunday off to do nothing but relax - we bought a mini-van on Sat (whoo-hoo!) and went to Disneyland on Sun (the happiest place on earth!). My plan was to work on all my projects and papers Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday to get caught up and hopefully a little ahead. Here is it, Monday afternoon and I'm just now sitting down at my computer (and I'm blogging rather than doing schoolwork). So much for getting ahead. It's tough to sit down and focus with both Micaela and the baby here (and sometimes Isaac and Chloe). Even if they are being good and not bothering me, it's still distracting knowing they are here and wondering if they are getting into trouble (is Micaela cutting up her curtains to make a doll's dress? Is the baby figuring out how to crawl out of his crib? etc.). Ugh. Maybe I'll ask the babysitter to come over tomorrow to entertain Micaela and watch the baby since I procrastinated all day today and will really need to buckle down tomorrow. Anyways, here are some of the pictures my mom took (disclaimer - she doesn't always announce when she's taking pictures, she likes it to be a surprise):

The new mini-van :)

I think Micaela saw a Hannah Montana episode where she got a star,

so Micaela wanted to pose like her

I like this picture, too bad Kurt wasn't there or else I could have made it our Christmas Card

Waiting for the High School Musical show to start

Getting on the train that goes around Disneyland

A Preview

2008-11-06T17:36:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I got a preview of what Jon is going to be like as a toddler. He is continually refining his large and fine motor skills and is now able to grasp just about anything and move it the way he wants to. Additionally, he is now an expert roller and can pretty much squirm where ever he wants to go. I like to feed him while I'm sitting in my dad's recliner watching TV, but sometimes Jon has different ideas. Yesterday he sat up, rolled over on my lap, reached over to the side table, grabbed the remote and threw it on the floor and then followed up by doing the same with his bottle, the telephone, and everything else that was on the side table. I would have stopped him, but this all happened quite quickly and I was caught off guard. Mari and my mom are always teasing me about how fun my kitchen is going to be for Jon to play in since I have all our pots and pans and snacks on open shelves just about toddler height. We may change our set-up after all...

This is for Mike the Pedrick - Jon is now old enough for the Steelers Dino that you got him and he loves watching it (too bad the song gets obnoxious after a minute or so). It's a little dark, but you'll get the idea of what the Dino does:

Halloween Pictures

2008-11-01T10:42:00.012-05:00

For Halloween this year Micaela was one of the following: an angel (dress with wings), a snow princess (dress without wings), and a gypsy (dress with Mardi-gras style mask).

This is her Angel costume:

This year Jon went as his dad (a pilot):

Here are the pictures from the very cool Halloween carnival that the church put on:

Micaela and her cousin Isaac

Jinxed (again)

2008-10-29T21:32:00.002-05:00

My sister informed me that I've already used the Jinxed title (for a blog similar to this one actually), but it will have to do, because it's what is appropriate.

I have a bad history with the red Jeep Wrangler that my parents bought when we found out we were moving to Mammoth, CA (which gets a lot of snow). I thought I'd share that history tonight, but it turned out a lot longer than expected, I'll understand if you don't get to read the whole thing in one sitting.

When I was 15 my parents decided to teach me how to drive using my oldest brother's first car, a Subaru Brat. While it was probably a cool car in 1986, wasn't exactly what I had in mind in 1996. Additionally, the clutch on that car was REALLY hard to use. Eventually my parents decided that I could drive the Jeep which has a really forgiving clutch. I took the Jeep down to Bishop for my driving test and didn't pass. I blame it on the car. The seats in the car were broken (they leaned towards the center) and the examiner told me that when we first left the parking lot I drove on the wrong side of the street. I still don't believe her and think that she just had a weird view from that broken seat. I re-took the exam in Misty's car a week later and did fine.
While no car is perfect in the snow, and the Jeep is better than most, I had a few run-ins with ice and a few experiences with doing 360s in the middle of the street. Fortunately no accidents came from those. The first accident I had in Mammoth involved a handicap pole. My parents were away for the weekend so I stopped at the post office to get the mail. It was really cold and snow pretty hard so I rushed back to the car after getting the mail and took off. Unfortunately I didn't see the pole that holds up the handicap placard and I ran right into it denting the area in front of the drivers side door and leaving the red jeep with a bright blue mark on it.
My next incident came my freshman year of college. I pleaded with my parents to let me have a car (it sucks living in LA without one) and after Christmas they told me I could take the Jeep. My dad had it checked out by the local mechanics, I loaded up my stuff, and headed down to school. The car felt a little funny right off the bat, but I just let it go. Later on in the drive I wondered whether my tire was low on air because it was wobbling/making a funny noise. By the time I got to L.A. it was a lot worse. I didn't want to stop since I was so close to home so I just drove real slow. I was going about 40mph on a 8 lane freeway when all of a sudden the left rear wheel just came off the car. Not the tire, the ENTIRE WHEEL. I immediately pulled off on the side of the road and luckily didn't have any damage. I don't know where the wheel went. We didn't have cell phones at the time so I hitched a ride to a gas station and used a pay phone to call AAA and my parents. The AAA guy put the spare tire on (I found an old lost wallet hidden in the spare) and I drove home. Pretty impressive for a 17 year old, huh?
On to my sophomore year... it was my 18th birthday and my friend Erica decided to take me to Hollywood with her. She had a rich friend who paid off the bouncers at a popular celebrity hang-out, so we got in without showing any IDs (the only celebrity that night was David Schwimmer). This guy that Erica liked also came with us. Since it was my birthday he offered to drive the Jeep back to campus so that Erica and I could have cocktails. It was actually a really boring place and everything was really expensive so we didn't stay too long. On our way home we were going 95mph on the freeway which made me really nervous because that's as fast as the Jeep can go. I told the guy to slow down, but it was too late. He tells me that somethings really wrong with the car and starts over toward the shoulder. He looks under the hood and says, "oh, this is only a four cylinder? My jeep has 5." I didn't know what that meant, but we couldn't get the car to start, so we called AAA and got it towed back to campus and later down to my parents house. Come to find out that the engine had seized which is a pretty expensive fix. The combo of letting this guy drive so fast with low oil was pretty dumb.
Next was another mechanical issue. It was still my sophomore year and the Jeep started doing this really weird thing where it would just shake, A LOT. I would be driving down the road and the car would start vibrating like it was going to just fall apart. Sometimes it would only last a second and other times it would go on for a while. It scared everyone I drove and I couldn't figure out what caused it or how to stop it. My dad took it in and the first time they couldn't find anything wrong because it didn't shake for them. Eventually they fixed the problem, but those were a few scary months.
Next, I think it was still sophomore year. I drove to Westwood with my friends Erica and Tom to meet up with some other friends for sushi. Before we went home, Erica picked up a few groceries a local market so there were three of us and all these groceries in the Jeep. We left sometime after dark and got on the freeway. I had just merged into traffic when a car a little ways ahead of me went from the #2 lane onto the shoulder. The car in front of me slammed on their brakes and I slammed on mine. It didn't work and I hit him going about 20mph and the whole front of the Jeep just crumpled. Then the person behind me hit me, but not very hard, and so on until there were 6 cars on the side of the road. The car that caused all the trouble took off and so did the sedan that was in front of me (maybe they were illegal?) One of Erica's friends picked us up, but we had to leave the groceries behind. The car ended up being totaled, but we kept it and my dad bought a new engine and hood and I was driving it again my junior year.
Next it was October of 2000 and some of my friends wanted to go to this Octoberfest in Palos Verde. I offered to drive since I wasn't 21 and didn't think this was the proper place for a fake ID. We had a good time and left around 9pm. I didn't know the area very well and when I went to get on the freeway I was looking for the signs and I ended up turning right in front of this Mazda sedan. He hit my right rear wheel and just scuffed the hub-cap, but his car was dinged up pretty good. The guy and his wife were on a way to a party and were pretty mad about the whole thing, but we just exchanged info and went on our way.
I've had a few other mishaps in other cars - getting hit from the side in the Cabrio and spinning 180 degrees by a car going backwards, poor parallel parking that took the bumper off the Passat, and then hitting my friend in Williamsburg and breaking a tail-light of the Passat, but the Jeep has really been bad luck for me.
My latest mishap occurred on my way home from a field trip up to Bishop, CA. I had had a horrible night's sleep and was anxious to get home. I left the Jeep in Long Beach so all I had to do was drive home from there, but I ended up giving another classmate a ride to his apartment in Anaheim. I'm not all that familiar with Anaheim so after dropping him off I called my dad to get directions. He told me to take the 22W to the 5S. Easy enough. I got on the 22W and was taking the transition to the 5S when traffic just stopped. I was looking at the signs at the time and I had hair in my face since the Jeep has no roof or doors, so my reaction time was a little off. I slammed on my breaks going about 30mph with a few car lengths between me and the car in front of me. I thought I would stop in time so I didn't even try to pull off to the shoulder to give myself more room. I was wrong. When I realized that I wasn't stopping I started turning the wheel, but it was too late. My front left bumper crashed into the right rear bumper of the SUV in front of me. At first glance it didn't look like it did any damage, but then I saw the ding in the SUV's bumper. We both pulled off to the side. It was probably the calmest I'd ever been in an accident (now that I have experience with them). We exchanged info and as I was walking back to my car I noticed a ding in her trunk door too. Small amount of damage doesn't exactly equal small amount of money when it comes to cars. I was bummed. I don't really tailgate and I backseat drive when Kurt tailgates, but this stuff still happens to ME! I'm definitely jinxed.

The end.

Tag - Random Facts

2008-10-27T23:32:00.003-05:00

This was actually really hard to do:

1. When I was little I collected a lot of things - porcelain dolls from around the world (the Franklin Mint kind), music boxes, seashells, foreign coins, stamps, and rocks. Go figure I later became a geology major.

2. I like airports, and not because I'm a pilot of sorts, I've always liked airports. My favorite one is the Chicago O'Hare airport because there is a moving walkway that goes underneath the runway to connect the terminals that has really cool neon lights above it.

3. I can touch my nose with my tongue (it's actually kind of gross).

4. In every one of my high school yearbooks there is a comic-strip type drawing where "the Evil Lizerd of Id" (aka me) dies. It's what Katie, Misty, Stef and I did to pass the time in boring classes - needless to say, I was/am still a geek.

5. I'm stealing this one from Mari, verbatim: I like to eat pretzels and ice cream together. Even using the pretzels to scoop up the ice cream. This stems from ice cream nights Grandparents Erdman when they lived next door to us. If I don't have them together, immediately after I'm done with the ice cream I get a pregnancy-style craving for pretzels.

6. I rode on a float in the Rose Parade in 1998. The president of the Lions Club chapter that is in charge of their float invited me and another Leo club president from Acton to be on the float. I think the Leo Club (a Jr. version of the Lions club) was a fairly new thing and he wanted to promote it. He was a very nice man. Unfortunately I got really sick the night before and didn't enjoy it quite as much as I should have. To make it worse, the theme was something with Huckleberry Finn and we had to wear overalls, a plaid shirt and no shoes and it was freezing!

Okay, to make Doug happy, the title of my next blog will be JINXED! Now I tag Misty and Michelle for weird facts :)

Grandma and the kids

2008-10-24T22:28:00.007-05:00

I'm about to go to bed so that I'm well rested for my 5am drive to Bishop, CA :( but I wanted to share some pictures I took yesterday of Grandma Sharon and the kids. We'll definitely miss grandma when she leaves on Monday, good thing Grandma Ginny is only an hour a way!

And on a side note - in the four days that Kurt has been gone I've managed to kill our best-looking hanging plant. This thing was HUGE and had a ton of flowers! Apparently it can't go three days without water, oops...

I love sleeping

2008-10-18T14:01:00.003-05:00

What a great morning. I did have to get up at 6:30am with the baby, but I was back in bed at 8 and I got to sleep in until 9:45 and it felt great! There's nothing like waking up without an alarm clock or without a pressing feeling like I needed to be doing something. Today my plan is to relax and watch college football, maybe do a chore or two around the house, but generally I just want to enjoy today. I'll worry about schoolwork and other stuff tomorrow. Last week sucked school-wise, but it sure does feel great to have my papers and presentations out of the way. I have a fair amount of work to do tomorrow, but it's managable. Next weekend my geography class is going to Bishop, CA to do 'field work'. I think it's funny that this is the second college field trip I've taken back to the eastern sierras (the first was my geology field trip to lovely Trona, CA). I think the only reason we are going there is because the White Mtn Research Facility is basically free and state schools don't have all that much money. I'm not all that excited about going and leaving Jon here, but my mom and my mother-in-law will be here so the kids will be in good hands. Okay, I'm going to get away from the computer now and try to be social - have a good weekend!

Tired

2008-10-09T23:27:00.017-05:00

I'm a little lacking on sleep this week and only got 5 hours last night, which is half of what I need, so I'm just going to put up pictures in lieu of a blog tonight (they are kind of random, some are old). I'm determined to get caught up on everything this weekend: sleep, homework, housework, workouts, blogging, etc. wish me luck.

The girl just loves ladders, I think she's going to grow up to be a firefighter...

...or a superhero

He makes great faces

Mari's idea of fun

Here are the pictures from the game I went to with Ranj

USC 44 Oregon 10

Fight On!

Jon loved his first taste of rice cereal!

Overdue

2008-10-08T00:25:00.003-05:00

I know that I'm overdue for a good blog, but life has gotten in the way. The semester is a third of the way over, and it's all I can do just to keep up with my schoolwork. I like taking care of the kids and helping Kurt with projects around the house and recently I've started exercising with Shellie (my sister-in-law) which leaves little time for schoolwork (I may need to re-prioritize). Soon I'll have projects and papers due, so I need to at least get started on them so I'm not swamped while Kurt is away. Jon is sleeping a full ten hours now, but since I don't go to bed at 8pm, I'm not getting quite that much sleep. Excuses, excuses... I really can't think of what else to write although I know I've done stuff in the last week. Let's see, next time I write I'll recap the great USC game I went to and I'll put up pictures of the awesome job Kurt did painting and fixing up our bedroom. Okay, I'm going to give my fried brain a rest now...

The Best Pizza Ever

2008-09-26T15:29:00.002-05:00

Last night I went to school and Kurt was home watching Micaela and Jonathan. When it came time to make dinner, we really hadn't planned anything, so Kurt decided to order pizza. Since we don't know too many places out here he got online and searched for local pizza shops. He didn't really want Dominos or Pizza Hut, so he looked at this place called Beach Cities Pizza. All the reviews were great - quite a few people had said it was the best pizza they'd ever had but it was a little pricey. Kurt's one for quality, so he gave them a call and ordered a pepperoni pizza and asked them to recommend another pizza. They told him "the Doheny" was really popular so he added it to the list along with a six-pack of diet coke. Kurt didn't quite hear the guy give the price, it sounded like $62.17 but must have been $16.17. 45 minutes later the delivery man shows up at the door with a bill for, sure enough, $62.17. Two pizzas for $62!!!! Kurt and I are on a pretty tight budget, so a meal like that is kind of a big deal. When I called Kurt on my break, he started out the conversation with "I just did the stupidest thing ever." Of course I replied "worse than the kitchen catching on fire?" He said that was an accident, and this was just stupid, and then relayed the pizza story to me. I told him that for $62 it better be the BEST PIZZA EVER and he said it actually was. I got home and had a piece and it was good (I was eating it while watching the USC game, so I was in a pretty bad mood, or else I would say it was delicious). I still wouldn't have bought it for that price, but at least we got something good out of it.