SOMETHING FUN...

Here's something fun... :-)

http://www.funstufftosee.com/optustennis.html

KIDS IN A CANDY SHOP

My daughter's school is having a fundraiser with a local store. They're donating a percentage of the proceeds to her school.

Being a nice mom, I thought I'd check it out. :-) Plus, the name of the store was intriguing....Powell's Sweet Shoppe. :-)

OH MY GOSH! It was like walking into Farrel's as kids! CANDY EVERYWHERE! Every surface just covered, hanging from the ceilings, dripping off the cupboards, etc., etc.! Drawers of unheard of candy, stacks and stacks of candy! They even had ice-cream! I had told the kids we were only spending $10...well, that turned into $10 each...

The picture above is what we purchased :-) You may notice some oldies but goodies in there :-)

http://powellssweetshoppe.com/pages/home.html

CATHEDRAL WINDOW QUILT

I had a nice day today - hubby took the kids in to get their bikes tuned up and I worked on the house. I unpacked a few more things that I've been putting off, and organized a bunch of pictures. It was just a nice quiet day. I even got time to work on my cathedral window quilt - that I haven't touched in TWO YEARS! :-( I swear, I'll never finish this thing! LOL It's a really time consuming quilt. It's sooooooo awesome, but mostly hand stitched. I'll see if I can find an internet link....

It's a true labor or love and I plan for it to be a family heirloom. All my scraps are from past sewing projects (dresses for daughter as a baby, blankets for the kids, etc., etc. ), clothes the kids wore when little, clothes of mine that were special, patches from hubby's old shorts, or scraps from my SIL's quilts. I want it to have a story and meaning. :-)

















Here are some links I posted from my spark friends:

Here's an AWESOME tutorial! It's not exactly how I'm doing mine - this is actually easier - but if you guys are interested, read it and scroll through so you can get a good idea of what I'm doing :-) Mine right now is about 11x10 squares - so...110 squares! Each square is about 4 inches? My centers are 2x2.

hyena-in-petticoats.blogspot.com/2007/08/c
athedral-window-quilt-tutorial.html

Here's a great picture of one:
www.flickr.com/photos/23405961@N03/2575121
779/in/pool-cathedralwindows

STAR WARS ADVENTURE

My little Jedi got to test out part of his Halloween costume when Darth Vadar, a Stormtrooper, a Jedi and I think an Imperial Fighter (I've been told numerous times who that orange guy is, but just can't seem to absorb it...) visited our local Pottery Barn kids store. We waited in line for an hour to see these guys and get their autographs. We were joined by little man's new BEST friend and his family.

My Big Jedi daughter thought she'd try out her Heelies that day. She was very proud of herself that she could roll from the wall to the strap without falling (about 1.5 feet...).





It was a fun day :-)

SO PROUD

FREE HAT FROM USTA!

I'm just too excited! :-) I signed up for USTA (United States Tennis Association) and they had a promotion going on that you got a free hat for joining. I needed to join so I could play on a team, but the hat was GRAVY!

I can't believe it, but it came in the mail over the weekend! WOOHOO! So, now I am just TOO CUTE in my 2008 U.S. OPEN hat! :-)

Oh, and have I mentioned I got ranked 3.5!?! WOOHOO! That means I get to play people BETTER than, or about the same as me! I love playing with pretty much anyone, but the challenge is really fun!

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!

The much anticipated first day of school has finally arrived! All the nerves, dread, excitement finally about to be released! Our son is excited about finally graduating into the "full day", "big kid playground" world! He got up this morning and even showered! We put a little mousse in his hair so he could look EXTRA cool and sexy. :-)
Baby girl has been DYING for a rolling backpack for the past few years. We just didn't want to do that big honkin' backpack, so promised when she went to middle school she could finally get one :-) Doesn't she look proud! She wore some of her BEST Abercrombie clothes and went to school feeling pretty confident. It helped that she's met some really nice kids at church and had plans to meet up with them.





The after school report is that everything is GREAT!!!! They both made friends, sat with people at lunch and liked their teachers. Daughter was very pleased that her teachers were all young - which is a rarity in this state! I was pleased to hear from one of the moms in my son's class that his teacher is phenomenal. PHEW! :-)

TEST FROM THE APPLE STORE

Hubby purchased a year of tutoring for our daughter when he bought the Mac book for her. She and her brother (and anyone willing) have LOVED making video's!!! This is an example of video's they make - very obnoxious, and extremely boring to anyone over the age of 12 :-) LOL

This one is with their cousin who was visiting this past weekend. For anyone over the age of 12, you may want to turn your volume down... :-)

VISIT FROM UTAH FRIENDS

Our friends from Utah came down in their zippy little Honda and spent the night. They came down specifically to see Hubby's projects, MORE specifically, his Mateo project. Here is our daughter in their zippy car.

Here's my daughter and friend chillin in the REALLY COOL leasing office/model. Notice what CUTIE's my friend and daughter are! :-) The furniture is so cool and just has a great vibe. Our son LOVES all the polished and unpolished cement floors. When ever we go to Costco, Home Depot, etc. he MUST wear his Heely's! LOL

What would pictures of Mateo be without one from my FAVORITE room in the building. These are FULL of electricity and pumped to different areas of the building. I just think they look sooooo cool!

915 MATEO SLIDE SHOW

This is a slide show of all the pictures (for the most part) that I have of 915 Mateo. I highly suggest clicking on view all images so you can see the bright and vivid colors Hubby has incorporated into the building. :-)

MORE PICTURES OF 915 MATEO

Brent asked that I post more pictures of his Mateo project, and I also found some OLD pictures so you can see the difference :-)

BEFORE AND AFTER:



HERE'S A SMALL REPRESENTATION OF HOW THE INSIDE HAS PROGRESSED:

NEW CHAPTER IN TENNIS

Well, today marked a new chapter in my life :-) I headed down to the tennis club that is exactly .7 miles from my house, and .5 miles from the "gate". As much as I want to hang on to my old group and favorite tennis pro, it's time for me to get active!

I went to a clinic - mostly 3.0 players and had a great time! I got to pick a lot of brains while there, and while this club is more expensive than my last tennis club, it should be worth it. I need to move on it quickly though if I want to get onto the USTA and PACSUN teams!

I'm REALLY ready to get playing again - going from 5 days to nothing is really stinky!

VISITORS TO OUR NEW HOME - OOPS!

This weekend, we had the pleasure of watching 3 of my brother's Vincent's kids while they went to a conference. :-) The boys thought it would be a good idea to take their scooters up the hill (even though they were specifically told not to, and that an older sister had to be outside with them) and ride down the hill! WHAT FUN! :-) Well, my nephew hit a crack in the sidewalk or something and according to both boys, did a flip and landed on his back/shoulder. Long story short....he went through the weekend very sore, and wouldn't lift his arm past elbow/shoulder height or it would REALLY hurt, but he was able to play video games and swim and had a great time. His mom took him to the ER today just to be sure that his saggy arm didn't mean anything and turns out he has a broken collarbone! Nice clean hairline fracture! UGGGG!!! So, he has to wear a sling for a while (4 weeks) or until he has full mobility.

The GOOD news is, they had a great time, we all had a really nice visit - the kids LOVED having their cousins here and the broken collarbone didn't slow them down one bit. Something about these little boys who were seperated by birth - they can have big time injuries and noone knows it! Is that a super power?

When Vince asked the Magic 8 ball if my nephew's collarbone was broken Saturday night, and it said YES, we should have listened! After all, it was correct when we asked it if my son broke the valance - reporting that "all signs point to yes" (or something like that).


Here's another picture of the boys from LAST weekend at an injury free stay at Papa and Grandma's :-)

Top Picture: my nephew with arm inside shirt - because it hurts too much to put it in armhole - but he did manage to climb into top bunk on night 2 :-)

AFTERNOON IN THE SHADE

We went to a local state beach to have a BBQ with a friend of Brent's. It was a wonderful day of good food, snacks, exercise and fun! The kids were so excited to see a nice long path and pedal carts for rent! They suckered their daddy out of his money and spent an hour pedalling around the beach! They even almost got to rent a pedal bike thing, but it was too late in the day.

They took their boogie boards down to the surf instead, but because it was a harbor, it had these jetty/breakers so the conditions were not idea for our son, but our daughter LOVED it! It reminded me a lot of the Ventura Harbor and going on Jenny and Darren's wave runner! The waves really weren't great for boogie boarding, but she sure had a good time trying!

While we were eating, a sun shade from the picnic area to our right BLEW over the divider, flipped and landed over OUR picnic area! It was the craziest thing! We couldn't figure out where it had come from! Another thing that we thought was bizarre was a group that came late in the day and set up camp to our far left - and they had two "HOOKAS" - you know, those smoke things? It was so bizarre watching them BBQ'ing and smoking their hookas.

DADDY'S LUCKIEST LITTLE GIRL!

This is the happiest little girl in the world! Her daddy surprised her with a VERY special present!
It's supposed to be for school, but until school comes, it's her own portable LOST Television! :-) She is having so much fun learning how to use her new MAC book and has learned how to change her background picture (yes, it's Kate, her favorite character from LOST), and many other things.

915 MATEO - ALMOST DONE!

People are usually pretty interested to hear what Brent is up to. When we were downtown last week we took a minute to drive by his Mateo property. I can't believe how BEAUTIFULLY it is coming along! I wish I had interior pictures to share, because it is truly fantastic and unique. Maybe those will be coming at a later date :-)

ONE LAST PIZZA FOR THE ROAD

It's a sad day when we think about our last official visit to Lampost Pizza. Granted it turns out we have one down here, but nothing will ever compare to our "old" Lampost. Thankfully we'll visit and re-visit our favorite two family restaurant!

REUNITED WITH AN OLD "BOYFRIEND"

I had a nice surprise this week as I was checking my email. My friend Dan Moody had left me a message on MySpace that he was in the area. Since I too was in the area, visiting my mom, and haven't seen "Danny" in FOREVER I said let's get together!! He came and met us at the beach. It was really fun to see how much he'd changed, and HADN'T changed. :-) He seems mellower than I remember, but really still a great guy. My son had a great time digging with his folding shovel, and they even tried to boogie board - except my son is a little afraid of going to deep...so that didn't work out so well :-)




PS - Dan is also my second oldest brother's brother-in-law :-) Dan's sister Lisa is married to Wade.

LAST "REAL" BEACH DAY OF 2008

BOOHOO!!!! Now that we've moved, we don't get to beach it with our best friends (MAMMA MIA)! We had one last beach day during our visit to my mom. Unfortunately, her son had to stay home but the girls had lots of fun.

My son found some REALLY CRAZY bug - it looked JUST like seaweed! Craziest thing I've ever seen! He always finds the most amazing things!

My sister Jenny and her adorable baby were also able to come. Check him out - at 6 months he's almost bigger than my daughter! :-)