Daily thought

Happy Monday everyone! And Happy MLK, Jr. day too :) Let's all take a moment to ber thankful for the freedom we have and the courage those before us had which allows us to have the freedom that we all enjoy.

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
— Winston Churchill

I know I have not been writing much lately. I am trying to focus on getting other things done around here and staying off the computer as much as I can. Yes, we are still busy and I doubt that will ever change, at least not for 20 or so years :)

We had a fun weekend. Greg had 2 soccer games Saturday. He was tired! Evelyn went to a birthday party at Color Me Mine. That place sure looks fun. I ran into my Fiskateer Friend Cheryl there too. She was there with her daughter.

Saturday we celebrated Tom's dads 85th birthday. We were all treated to a great lunch at Don Jose's and then to cake and ice cream at their house. Happy Birthday Clarence :)

Sunday the guys could not wait to watch the football games. My teams did not win, but I am ok with that. From what I saw of the games, they were good games.
Greg has been antsy to sell some of his things on ebay. So, he helped me get things ready to list on ebay and we even took our first try at Craig's List.

Today no school. Ahhhh. But I still have to work. I hope it will be a quiet day. This afternoon Evelyn's friend and her mom are coming over so we can work on the girls science project. I hope we have what we need. If not, I know the hardware store is open. wish us luck! Greg also has to finish up his time line of the important events in his life. Hmmmm. this is what he came up with: first time I colored my hair with markers, first hair cut, first soccer goal. We looked through some of the older photo albums. that was fun. but we did not make any progress, so that is Greg's task to do today.

For the week ahead: hmmmm. School. Work. Soccer practice. Homework. Riding lessons. Dentist. I think it's pretty quiet this week. Maybe I can finish up my book! Almost to pg 700 and its 973 pages!

If I don't write any more this week have a super week everyone. !!

Daily thought

Not too much to write about today. So, I will leave you with this daily thought to ponder. I am.

Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.
— Michael Burke

Daily thought

Dreams are only thoughts you didn't have time to think about during the day.
— Anonymous

Riding, Baseball, Soccer, Football --- all in one weekend

And you thought we were done for awhile, didn't you :) We thought so too, but we only had a short break. I will splain........
Evelyn has horseback riding lessons every Friday night, unless it is raining or too windy. Greg came with us Friday. When Evelyn gets out of the ring to do a stable walk, Greg likes to walk around too and we pet the horses. Most welcome a good scratch on the chin or the forehead. And of course, our feet were caked in mud and who knows what else after doing many laps around the stables, in the dark. Evelyn is really progressing in her riding lessons and so loves it. She wants to be a barrel racer and dreams of her own horse one day.

Saturday morning we were up early for baseball tryouts. I got Greg in the earliest group so we could make his soccer game. He saw some old team mates and coaches and it was great to catch up with some parents. Tryouts seemed to go well for Greg. Let's keep our fingers crossed for the draft! Since Greg was not at his regular try out time, his number was last. Time was getting late for us and Greg had not batted yet. I made a plea to a coach who was helping with try outs to let Greg bat early as he had a soccer game. Plea granted, Greg hit great, then we raced out of there to get to the soccer field.

Made it to the soccer field 10 minutes before game time. Whew! This league is a 5 on 5, short field, small goals and no goalie. Pretty much the boys play where they want, which is all over the place. Some different rules than AYSO soccer. Greg's team won 3 - 2 and Greg scored a goal! He was worried about those small goals. Well, I guess not anymore. I told Greg to remember this is not football and to keep his arms down when he is running with the ball. He is not supposed to block or push like he can in football. At least he did not get called for it, this time.

Home from soccer, to shower, eat lunch and then get K to the vet. She needed shots (0uch!!) and blood work for the hip meds she is on. K made a new friend at the vet, this huge white dog that just loved her. She did so well with Mr. big white dog and his little Mrs. black dog friend too. Maybe she is relenting her superiority in her older age. :)

Home time for a relaxing afternoon and evening. Evelyn took a nap (yeah!), Greg played football in Wii land and played with the neighbors, while I did some more scrapping. I was on a roll and so needed to get some done. yeah me! We watched "Aragon" which was so awesome! The dragon was so cool!

Now it's football time and we skip to Sunday. We all slept in Sunday morning. Headed to church and then to Frudruckers for Greg's football banquet. Almost everyone was there so we had quite the crowd and had our own room. Of course the Chargers game was on (Go Chargers!!) It was great to see all the players and parents and catch up with them too:) The coach handed out the trophies and gifts for the kids and we watched a great photo presentation and video one of the dad's made. And we each got a copy!! Greg is all pumped up for football next year and sign ups are only a few months away.

So, that was about the jist of our weekend. 4 sports all in one weekend. Wow! It's crazy, but I love it!
Update on Evelyn's knee: She used her crutches on Saturday but not on Sunday. She can straighten out her knee now and it doesn't hurt as much. One more week of staying off it as much as she can.

After the fires

It has been agout 2 months since the Santiago Fire has come and gone. We have had the residual black soot dust blowing in our house and getting all over everything, inside and out, when it rains. We thought it was all washed away with the first big rain, but it came back with the next Santa Ana winds. We have had a good rain that started last Friday evening. Hopefully this rain has washed away the ashes.

Part of the hills have been seed blasted and you can see green patches on them.

On the way home from the Rose Parade on New Years Day, I took pictures as we were driving along the toll road where the fire was.

Working toward the weekend

Finally a Friday! What a week. But no sleeping in tomorrow.
Tonight Evelyn has riding lessons. She should be able to ride ok with her knee. She is getting around realy good on those crutches.
Greg has baseball tryouts at 8:30, which means we have to be at the field at 8 to sign in and warm up. Greg needs to be in an early group as he has a soccer game at 10.
After tryouts we will get over to his game in Aliso Viejo hopefully before 10. Greg is playing winter soccer in the Elite Soccer League. It's a 5 on 5 short field league, small goals, no goalie. His first practice was last night. This league ends just as baseball games will start.
Sunday is Greg's football awards banquet. So we will head over to that after church. It will be nice to see all the players and parents again.

Tom is going to a retreat so will be back on Sunday for the banquet. I have movies and plan to drag out my scrap stuff and have a relaxing weekend when we are not out and about.

Hope you all have a fun and safe weekend :) Make the most of it.

A day at the Doctors

Wednesday turned out to be quite a day. Greg had to get a tooth pulled as he has a permanent tooth growing on the outside of the baby tooth. We had a referral to an oral surgeon for a tooth extraction. Tom took Greg to the oral surgeon for his 8:30 appointment. No problem there. Greg came home in good spirits with a mouth packed with gauze and blood tinted drool. He also had his tooth which he proudly showed me. I helped Greg get more gauze in his mouth to stop the bleeding and drooling, gave him a yogurt smoothie and then was on my way to my Dr. appointment.
This one was for my wrist. Bothers me all the time. I have had my nerve conductive study which confirms what I know so now have been referred to an orthopedic surgeon for more evaluation. I was home from that appointment within an hour.
Now on to Evelyn. She was also home as she hurt her knee ice skating Friday and was still hobbling around on it. Her knee was very swollen when she got home from school on Tuesdsay. I called the dr. office Wednesday morning and got her an appointment for 2:00.
In between appointments, the kids were reading, doing school work and having fun in the land of Wii.
We didn't wait long till we were seen by the Dr. She gave us the news that Evelyn has jammed her knee joint. It's like when you jam your finger and the knuckle gets sore and swollen. Well, that's her knee. Evelyn needs a brace and what did she say??? Crutches? Yes that was right. Crutches for a few days. And to keep off her knee as much as possible for 2 weeks. Ok. Now it gets fun.
We head to this great out of the way pharmacy recommended by the dr. It's Cal-Med pharmacy across from the YMCA on Trabucco and Marguerite. If you need a medical appliance or first aid item.....that's the place to go. A very nice lady helped us get the right brace for Evelyn's knee and measured her for crutches. (Evelyn is 5'2"!!) We opted to rent crutches rather than buy. But the only pair left was way too small even after adjusting them as much as we could. Argh!! Now what???
I planned to go home and check out the phone book and start calling. But then I remembered a few people who had crutches at one time and started calling them on the way home. Success! Eric said they still had Chrissy's crutches from when she broke her foot years ago. Told him we would meet him after 5:00.
This did relieve some anxiety but I was so ready for a nap by then. It was just one thing after another all day long. But I didn't nap. I went back in the office to finish up some work, and also made sure the kids had all their school work and reading done before heading back to Wii land.
We got the "crunches" from Eric and Chrissy. That is what Jake called them :) We stayed for awhile to chat and play with Jake and Nathan. Then we picked up my mom and went to Corner Bakery to get some soup for dinner. It was tasty and just what I needed. Helped to clear up my head ache. And soup was a good meal for Greg.
Greg did not complain at all about his tooth. Evelyn is getting used to her knee brace and moving around on crunches, oops, crutches. Greg said he would carry her back pack to class for her. Nice brother he is :)
I had enough of doctors for one day. Next dr. visit is next Monday when the kids have dentist appointments. Just a check up and good timing too to make sure Greg's mouth is doing fine.
I hope today will be a quiet day. Please, pretty please :)

Fiskars Demonstrator

I did it! I am a Certified Fiskars Demonstrator. Have my official name badge, certificate and training manual. Wow!
I have been wanting to put the creative part of me to work for a long time. I found it through the Fiskateers. What a wonderful group of women these are. All around the world, women can get together on one awesome site and share their love for crafting. Does not have to be scrapbooking. Some sew, quilt, bead, make cards, stamp, you name it. These folks love crafting. Like me.
When I heard of the demonstrator training I jumped on board right away. My friend Tara also jumped on board, probably right before me as she is pretty quick.

We met Stephanie and Anita and Cheryl, one of the lead Fiskateers joined us. We met other Fiskateers local to our area as well as some soon to be Fiskateers. So much fun! We also got to win fun prizes. I love winning prizes. I won a fun clear stamp set.
Tara and I are also going to be demonstrators for Fiskars at CHA in February. CHA is in Anaheim and not too far from home. I have always wanted to go to CHA and I have always wanted to work at it or an Expo. Now I have my chance.

Now that this door has opened for me, I have to find fun ways to put this to use. I already have some plans churning around in my head. If anyone needs a Fiskars demonstrator, I am the gal for you.

We got to play with punches, embossing tools, cutters, stamps, you name it.
Me and Tara taking a break to get our photo taken.

Happy 2008

Now that we are already into 2008 guess it's time to write about our New Years.

We had a quiet New Years Eve at home with the family. This is typically how we spend New Years Eve. Greg was busy prospecting on My Simms, Tom watching a football game and Evelyn and I played War and a few games of Sorry. Evelyn was not even sorry that she whopped me at Sorry. But I did beat her in War.

Shortly before 9 pm we switched off the Wii and landed on ESPN. We saw the ball drop in Times Square and celebrated a New York New Years Eve. Then, the anticipation was on waiting to watch what's his name jump the length of a football field on his motorcycle at the Rio in Las Vegas. After patiently waiting through commercials, etc... finally...... the bike was revved up and what's his name gained speed of 90 mph, was up the ramp..........over the field........and safely landing on the landing, making the Worlds Record. Only to try to outdo this record and jump again to land in the exact spot. Boy, that was pretty exciting.

After all that, we all went to bed.......Why so early??? Well, we had to be up early to do something fun and exciting and that the rest of my family had never done before. We were going to.................

ready............

Going to the Rose Parade on New Years Day. I had done this with my family many times as a kid. Even stayed over one night with my Girl Scout troop. So, a few days before I decided I was going to the parade. Evelyn jumped on board right away and the guys decided to go too. I did some research, got info from the expert, my dad, and planned out our day as much as I could.



We left home about 6:50 am. I think we saw maybe 3 cars on the 5. We buzzed up to Pasadena and arrived in about an hour. Found an awesome place to park and walked about 10 minutes on Colorado Blvd towards the parade route. Headed North on Sierra Madre, where the parade makes a turn, and found the most ideal spot we could. Talk about mobs of people, but we got a good spot. We had brought 2 chairs, a beach towel and a backpack with water and snacks, and of course, the camera. Wanted to travel light as we did not know what to expect.


Here is the 5 freeway south. You never see it like this at 7am on a Tuesday morning.
Driving by Angel Stadium on the left. Home of the World Champion Angels!
The Honda Center, formally known as the Pond. Home of the Stanley Cup winners ~ The Mighty Ducks or also known as the Anaheim Ducks.
A view of the mountains on a beautiful clear morning. And once again, no cars!
We are almost there! And again, hardly any cars on the freeway.

After we staked our spot of parade real estate, the kids and I headed out to find bathrooms. Waited in line for almost 45 minutes for the lovely porta potties. yeck!! Luckily we found Tom again as mobs of people had since filled in our spot along the parade route.


Mobs of people up and down Sierra Madre Blvd. We were lucky and got a great spot not to far back from the street.

After the motocycle police drove by, the Marines proudly carried our beautiful American Flag
After the Marines, the boy souts and girl scouts carried flags of all the countries.

The parade passed by us around 9:30. Evelyn and I took photos of each and every entry. All the floats, bands, horses, you name it. We captured it with a photo. 100 plus photos I am sure. It is just amazing seeing the floats up close. They are huge! Some of my favorites: (note: I could usually get a better picture of the floats after they had passed me so that is why some are the back view)

The circus train. I remember going to a circus parade when I was a kid. One Christmas my brother got a wooden circus train.
Remember Bob from Seasme Street? Here he is!
Midevil Time Knights. The horses and costumes are spectacular.
The Farmers Insurance float. Have to put a plug in here for my employer. It was a huge float and there were Indian dancers before the float.
The fire wagons pulled by beautiful horses. Before the old wagons, were fire fighters riding on horses.

Beijing Olympics float. There were acrobats and jugglers on the float and dancers walking before the float.
Go Dodgers!Celebrating their 50 years.
Yep, that's Steve Gravey, third from the right. I don't know who the other players are. Steve Garvey was a Dodger when we would go watch the Dodgers play when we were kids.
Go USC!!
Whoo-Hoo! Stanley Cup winners ~ The Mighty Ducks. The player is May and he is riding on the float for the City of Anaheim.

The Nativity on the Lutheran Leagues' float. "Joy to the world, the Lord has come" was the theme of the float.
My favorite horses, Clydesdales, pulling the City of St. Louis float "The Lewis & Clark Expedition"
Look at this guy riding this bike. Looks hard but would be fun to try. Another beautiful float from the city of Sierra Madre.

When the parade was over we once again joined the mobs of walking people and began the short trek back to the car. Headed towards the freeway, got right on and headed on home. Really no traffic at all.

We pulled through the drive through of In-n-Out in Foothill Ranch and got our lunch and were home by 1 pm just in time to click on the tv and start the football games.

Evelyn and I finished taking down the tree and boxing up the rest of the Christmas decorations. Kids and I went on a bike ride. Evelyn and I saw Water Horse while the guys watched football. Then I fell into bed exhausted around 8 pm.

This was a great day and a great way to start off the New Year. Can't wait to go to the parade again next year. Evelyn and I are going and everyone is welcome to tag along!

Happy 2008

Hey, Buzz on over and check this out

I learned of a new web site Sunday. It's SouthOCBuzz (www.southocbuzz.com) A few of the photographers were taking pix at the kids run on Sunday.
Find the photo link, then click on events, and then click on OC Marathon 2008. On the second page of the photos, you will find me and the kids. We are with another gal and her daughter. She is in pink, daughter in red, I am behind Evelyn and Greg. Greg in shorts , Evelyn blue.

Buzz on over and check it out. Lot's of fun photos of local happenings on the site. You can even advertise an event on the site as well.

Laundry anyone?

Does anyone enjoy laundry as much as I do? Ok folks, this is really a joke. Did you laugh? Doesn't matter.

Laundry is all around me. It consumes my life. I try to follow the rule set by the Fly Lady and do a load of laundry a day. That is ok. Something I can handle. I really don't mind doing laundry as long is it is jeans or towels. The load I really don't like doing and always save it till the last one and then it sits and haunts me is.............. the whites! I love white, one of my favorite colors. But...... whites include socks, tons and tons of socks, well maybe pounds of socks. But they all start to look the same. I really don't like to get in there and sort them. I should just leave the basket in the hall with a sign: Need socks? Here you go. You find 'em you wear 'em.


Evelyn and Greg's socks are almost the same. They like the peds. Then they both have a few other kind of socks thrown in there too. Try matching them all up.

I did try putting initials on the socks in black sharpie. But that soon wore off. Then I had a brainstorm tonight as I kept passing by the basket full of socks. Sharpies. Different color sharpies. I found one red and one black. Evelyn picked red. Greg got black.


And now hopefully I can tell the socks apart come next sock folding day.

And maybe I can sell this one one ebay. LOL!

That would be Greg's sock. Could he wear shoes on his feet, over the socks, like most other people, when he plays in the street, or on the wet muddy lawn? Nope.......so his new white socks quickly take on an entirely new look within a few wearings.

socks......... well, they do keep my forever cold feet warm.

After post note (apn) sorry for the gross sock pix. Was a strange post anyways. But sometimes I just gotta vent. and hopefully I have found a way to get over my sock sorting anxiety.

OC Marathon

It was cold and gloomy and looked like rain but we still headed out early for the OC Marathon. Why???

The kids had been training for the Kids run. During PE at school, they were training and ran for a total of 25 miles . The kids run at the OC Marathon was 1.2 miles and would be their final leg in the 26.2 miles of the marathon. While the marathon and half marathon started at Fashion Island in Newport Beach, the kids run and the 5K were at the Irvine Spectrum, much closer to home.

Evelyn hurt her knee on Friday when her and Tom were ice skating. She still hobbled along with us to cheer on Greg. Greg found his buddies Gregory and David to run with. We also saw Gavin and coach Skinner from football and many other people we knew.




The boys decided to run at 9:00 with the 11 and 12 year olds. Their time was 9:30. Greg is to the left of the photo almost standing next to the man in the black sweat pants and sweat shirt.
Ronald McDonald was there to entertain and talk about the Ronald McDonald houses. The world record holder for the 100 m was also there. I forget his name, but he is from Jamaica and will be running in the 2008 Olympics. :) Here he is. And that is Greg just to the left of him.

The air horn blasted and the kids were off. Greg was at a full on sprint. I told him to pace himself. Oh well. He's up there near the front of the group and I know which shoe is his :)

Gregory was the first of the group to come in. Evelyn thinks he was about the 6th runner in. Greg was in the top 20.

After the kids finished the race, they each got a participation medal. More awards will be handed out at school. Greg was pretty winded but was fine in just a few minutes. He is already talking about doing more races. That's my boy!
I asked the kids what they wanted for breakfast and it was unanimous, Starbucks. We ended up driving north on Alton and this was the route of the marathon. We didn't see any runners this time. We went to the closest Starbucks I knew of and then headed back to Alton. We parked in a parking lot facing the street and sat in our warm cozy car with our Starbucks waiting for runners to go past us. We sat for almost 30 minutes and maybe saw 20 runners go past. Some looked exhausted while others looked like they just started running. At this point the runners had about 3 miles left of the race.

Greg and Evelyn are now talking about training to run 5k races. We have worked out a training schedule and just need for the rain to let up so we can get started.