At least I didn't invest in a Ponzi scheme

So, I'm a little dismayed that once again, it's Christmas Eve Eve and I am nowhere near done with the Christmas cards, there's at least 8 hours of present wrapping to be done and both kids are on antibiotics.....sigh! But, at least I didn't put our retirement money in a Ponzi scheme. I was so annoyed listening to former millionaires on CNBC whining about how they lost all their money and the government needs to rescue them. HELLO!!!!! DIVERSIFICATION!!!! How do people manage to save millions while they are stupid and/or gullible! Everything that Madoff guy said had all the earmarks of a classic Ponzi scheme! Ack!!!! OK -- gotta go back to the card salt mines...here's another ELF installment! I wonder if Rob would like the ShamWow as a stocking stuffer........

Rachel made me do it

We needed 5 elves, so Grandma got cast -- sorry Beryl!

Cheap Wyoming Gas

Rob insists that this receipt is blog-worthy. It's his last receipt for filling up the suburban -- $33.56! Granted that's with $0.40 a gallon in coupons, but still it's been a long time since we saw gas for less than $1.50 a gallon -- $1 a gallon is phenomenal!

The tooth fairy pays $2 a tooth at our house. Unless, you lose two in the same day. She's pays an $1 extra since she saves a trip.

Rob put our dead tree in the garage before I could get any reindeer parts assembled to make a twisted holiday display. He thinks it makes sense to keep the dead tree so we'll have a supply of snowman arms.

Santa, teeth and a dead tree

Peter and Jeremy had a great time talking to Santa at his D-land cabin. Santa talked to them for quite a while. A few days after we got home, Peter remembered some things he forgot to tell Santa, so he had to write a traditional letter. He’s not sure if that will work.

Jeremy lost his first two teeth. The first one the day after he turned five and the second one the day after! He’s getting so big!

Jeremy picks up some pretty interesting things in pre-school. They are working really hard on letters and sounds. He doesn’t seem to understand the concepts of “starts with”. However, when we were decorating the tree, I asked him to do something and he said, “Yes, Ma’am!” Well, Rob decided that if I could get Yes Ma’ams, then he could get Yes Sirs. I think he must have heard this in pre-school, because he hasn’t heard it here!

Our apple tree got run over the other night. It started snowing Tuesday and the doofus brains all decided to converge on the school parking lot across the street. We kept calling the police, but they kept missing the antics. Well, the third doofus brain spun cookies in the parking lot and then as he was leaving, he blew past the stop sign and didn’t stop until he’d snapped our apple tree in half! Grrr! At least he didn’t hit the house. It turns out that he’s 16 and lives down the street. I’m still trying to decide whether to just file a claim against his insurance or call his parents and arrange to have him dig a new whole for a new tree in May. I’d like to buy one of those reindeer lawn ornaments, cut the legs off and put the legs hoofs up in front of the dead tree. The problem is that I can’t get Rob on board.

So, if you have better ideas for using a dead apple tree in a slightly twisted Holiday sort of way, let me know. I've got to figure out how to make Rob think that it's his idea and then he'll do it. I keep trying to get him to hang the tree upside down from the ceiling, but he won't go for it. It would be great -- no need to rearrange the furniture, cat can't bat ornaments off the tree or climb it, more room for presents, etc.

OK -- so the spell-checker doesn't have any issues w/ "doofus" or "hange"? Why do I bother? Hange?!? Want to know what the spell-checker doesn't like? Contractions and "street"! Grrrr, ..now I understand why Rob's stuff has so many typos -- the spell-checker can't spell either! Whoever programmed the darn thing has got to be related somehow. Maybe through the group that escaped to Mexico in 1900's. I used to think they fled to Canada or Mexico to avoid the anti-polygamists. Now I'm starting to believe they took off to escape the tyranny of spelling bees!

I'm-a gonna go ta hell when I die da da dah

Conan has this little song he sings when he says something particularly insensitive and he does a little jig: "I'm-a gonna go ta hell when I die, I'm-a...." I mention this because 1) it's one of my favorites and 2) I sing and do the little jig in my mind more often than you'd think if you attend my Sunday School class. On the trip down to LA, we made our first regularly scheduled potty break @ the Cadillac gas station in Rawlins. The boys went in w/ Rob as usual. As usual, I finished before they did. I got a pop for me & got drinks for everyone else and then I heard Jeremy start to scream, this went on for some time. Apparently, he just wasn't in the mood to go. The next morning we stopped for the first potty break of the day at some tiny town between Lehi & Beaver (we don't stop in Beaver because we don't want to deal the crooked tire pushers). Somehow in a process only known to himself, Jeremy managed to get his entire backside soaked & he had to change into the emergency clothes. The next stop of the day was for lunch at a buffet in Mesquite. After lunch, we naturally took a potty break before hitting the road again. Well, Rob insisted that I take Jeremy. After an uneventful break, Jeremy and I were finished much earlier than Rob & Peter. So, I had Jeremy practice making a frownie face and saying, "I cried, and made a mess and Mommy spanked me!" When Rob asked how it went, Jeremy made his frownie face, told Rob that he cried, made a mess and that I spanked him. Well, Rob just about lost it right in the middle of the casino -- until Jeremy and I started laughing & Jeremy explained it was a joke! The scary thing is how well Jeremy pulled it off. I think I'm going to have to add "No tricking Mommy" to the list of things he can't do if he wants Mommy & Daddy's college money.

Saturday we had the most amazing experience. We got up at the crack of dawn & made it to D-land when it opened at 8. We got a phenomenal parking spot -- the best we have EVER gotten. That by itself was enough to make for a fabulous day. However, while Rob was dashing over to get Space Mtn fast-passes, we measured Jeremy & he's big enough to ride Indy! Woohoo -- so we rode Indy when Rob finished the fast-pass run and then headed over to Big Thunder. Since it was so stinkin' early, there was no line there either. When we got off our 2nd Big Thunder ride at about 9, the Dream Team was handing out Dream Fast-Passes to everyone who got off our train!!!! Ohhh -- we were so flumoxed that we had to regroup. We rode Pirates to clear our heads and come up with a new plan, since we didn't want to waste the Dream Fast-passes. Dream Fast-Passes are express tickets to the 13 best rides -- D-land & Ca Adventure. They hand out about 100 a day. We never imagined we would get them, but they are by far the best Dream Prize. They also give away dopey things like a night in the dream-suite in the park, shopping sprees, chances to lead the parade, eder="0">tc. Anyway, we then focused on riding the fast-pass rides. We figured out that we could still get & use regular fast-passes. So we ended up getting enough fast-passes that we rode Big Thunder 6 times, Space Mtn 3, Soarin 2, Indy 3, etc. As if that wasn't fabulous enough, Peter finally decided he was brave enough to ride Ca Screamin (my personal fav) AND he liked it. Since Jeremy isn't tall enough for that one, Peter rode once w/ Rob and once w/ me. Then we ALL rode Tower of Terror. Generally, when we get off a ride, Jeremy says some variation of "wanna go again!" Not this time -- it was, "I want to get off!" In fairness, it was only mine & Rob's 2nd time -- the first time was 7 years ago. I think I'm good for another 7 years. Anyway we left the park at about 11:30 that night. We still had a couple unused fastpasses -- we were just too wiped out to keep going. Poor Jeremy -- we didn't get a stroller on Saturday, so by the time we were headed to the tram, he just couldn't make his little 5-year old legs go any more!

I can't find the battery charger for my camera, so I'm using the dopey card reader to transfer photos & it is taking forever.....grrrr! I don't dare try to transfer video while that is going on -- so maybe later I'll get some videos posted. Rob's new thing has been to take photos while we are on the ride. I haven't watched those yet, so they may never air.

Another quick note on the Asperger's stuff. I think it's actually going to be very helpful for us. The more I learn about it, the more I'm able to find new skills for me and more importantly, things Rob & I can teach Peter. I've always had demons that I've been fighting, and when I found something that worked I would hold onto that. The hard thing was that I couldn't see the demons, but I knew they were out there. Now, I'm learning things that help me 1) recognize the demons, 2) learn more strategies for fighting them and 3) helping Peter do the same thing. It's also helping Rob. I always understood Peter better & Rob always understood Jeremy better. Now it makes sense -- we have two distinct brain types in our house. It's also helping me to connect to Jeremy by helping me understand that 'normal' people think differently than me & it helps me to understand what 'normal' is. I still have a lot of work to do, but I'm glad to have more tools available. I'm hopeful that Peter will be able to learn to use these tools earlier in life -- maybe he won't struggle with them quite so much.

Tagged

I got tagged by a friend to answer the following questions.

FOODOLOGY*

What is your salad dressing of choice? Not sure what it’s called, but Green Street Restaurant in Pasadena’s Mackey’s Chicken Salad – think it’s a ginger/Chinese thing….

What is your favorite sit-down restaurant? Oh dear…….it’s the French restaurant @ Epcot Center –ooooh, but the Italian one was really fabulous!

What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of? Mackey’s Chicken Salad (see # 1)

What are your pizza toppings of choice? Pineapple & pepperoni or the Pizza Hut BBQ Chicken pizza.

What do you like to put on your toast? real butter and dip it into hot chocolate – learned that trick in Jr High French class.

*TECHNOLOGY*

What is your wallpaper on your computer? Jeremy in his Jedi-Cowboy-Stormtrooper costume looking very serious.

How many televisions are in your house? 4……..hey – that’s only 1 per person! It’s not like the cat has a TV….yet…..

What color cell phone do you have? silver

*BIOLOGY*

Are you right-handed or left-handed? right

Have you ever had anything removed from your body? Teeth, gall-bladder & 2 kids…

What is the last heavy item you lifted? 55 lbs of suitcase [So they have a new gal at the Casper airport. She asked me if I wanted to re-arrange anything in my luggage. I said “no” very matter-of-factly, which I thought was extremely polite of me AND very reasonable since it was 5:30 am. She gives me a really annoyed look and says, “Delta charges $125 for over-weight bags.” So I said, “you really should look at my ticket before you tell me that.” She looks at the screen, scowls and says, “I don’t even know if Delta will take a bag over 50 lbs.” At that point, I look at the regular gal for some help, she comes over, says “Hi”, puts a Heavy tag on my bag and says “Have a nice flight, Ma’am.” As I left, I heard the regular gal telling the new gal that they would need to review the elite flier rules again…….]

Have you ever been knocked unconscious? Nope. Well not that I remember other than surgeries.

*BULLCRAPOLOGY*

If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die? Hmmm, depends on if I had enough $ to have a really fabulous party or trip & still leave my family financially stable.

Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1,000? $1K? No.

*DUMBOLOGY*

How many pairs of flip flops do you own? zero

Last time you had a run-in with the cops? Last flight home on a Friday – got a warning for speeding into town at 11 pm…..in front of the Beacon…

What do you want to be when you grow up? Rich.

Last person you talked to? Front desk clerk.

Last person you hugged? Cori

*FAVORITOLOGY*

Season? Spring

Holiday? Christmas

Day of the week? Saturday

Month? April

OK – so I copied the form from Steph’s blog (since she tagged me) and I didn’t have to change any of the Favoritology answers!

*CURRENTOLOGY*

Missing someone? Rob, Peter & Jeremy

Mood? I survived! Had a board meeting today which was stressing me out!

Listening to? Law & Order, Criminal Intent

Watching? My words show up on my monitor.

Worrying about? Getting work done, finishing Xmas, planning for after Xmas trip, will we ever adopt? How long will Rob be the Spotted Man? Will Jeremy be totally bored with Kindergarten? Are we going to get the Xmas lights up? Why didn't anyone comment on my new title photo? How come spell-checker doesn't understand contractions?

*RANDOMOLOGY*

First place you went this morning? work

What can you not wait to do? Spend Thanksgiving with my family

What's the last movie you saw? Hunt For Red October – it’s on the iPod – yaaa!

Do you smile often? I guess, mostly when the kids are being cute or people do stupid things…

If they have time, I'd like to hear what Janelle, Michelle & Angela have to say. I think we need to get Bev & Cindy blogging…..

Halloween Pox!

So, on Nov 1st, Rob got this funky rash. We didn't think much of it, since it started to go away. But, just when the spots went away, a whole new itchy batch showed up. Turns out that it's Chicken Pox! Ha! Yeah, so he was contagious 2 days BEFORE the first pox showed up, including the 2 hours he spent wandering around with our kids AND the neighbors' trick-or-treating! And at Bev's party. I'm amazed at how many people had their kids vaccinated. Rob is currently on wave 4 of the pox. Apparently when an adult gets it after having it as a kid, it can go on for a couple of weeks. Our kids have been vaccinated, but if that doesn't work, they could see pox just in time for Thanksgiving.

This is Peter at 18 months. I made the costume for his first Halloween, but it was WAY too big. I did NOT make Pooh's costume. Jeremy never wore this costume -- he was too big for it for his first Halloween at 12 months.....

The second photo is our bathroom -- in the basement!!!! We have connected plumbing!!! Yaaaa!!!!!!!!! It still needs a little work, but it's got tile, fixtures and a door! Hopefully the ceiling tiles will show up soon. I put some gold paint in the topcoat of the venetian plaster -- it glitters a bit. The floor is a little intense -- gives you slight vertigo. I thought about getting a glow-in-the-dark additive for the grout, but that may have been over the top. I still think we should get a fish-n-flush. www.fishnflush.com I haven't been able to talk Rob into it yet. Hmmm -- maybe Santa will bring one......I'll have to think about that while I try out the jets in my tub this weekend.

Why do I always find typos AFTER I publish the post? Really, I use the spell check, preview, etc. Then I post & check to see how it looks and BOOM there's grammar errors up the wazoo! Spell checker does NOT have a problem w/ 'wazoo', but it doesn't like 'topcoat'. What gives?

Pumpkin Portraits

These are our self-pumpkins. Everyone did their own. The best part is it was relatively mess-free -- only a few pieces of foam to pick-up.

So, I've had sinus headaches on & off (mostly on) for all of October. I thought my troublesome crown was acting up, so I went to the dentist. He x-rayed & poked it 5000 times and pronounced it innocent. That was all fine and good, but I still felt crappy & was heading straight towards unbearable. Finally, I decided that my mixture of decongestants, advil, aleve & oragel was really not cutting it and finally went into the Dr. Turns out that I've got a full-blown ear infection! I had no idea how painful they are! Holy cow! No wonder babies are cranky when they have them! Anyway, I've been on the antibiotics for a week and I think it's almost gone.

Jeremy & Peter are going to be Power Rangers, unless they change their mind. We are getting a fairly decent supply of options: Superman -- classic colors, Superman -- new colors, Spiderman, red or black, Batman, Indiana Jones, Stormtrooper, Darth Vader, various Jedi, a skeleton & I think something else... That doesn't include the odd assortment of other accessories: tri-corner hats, fireman hats, armor w/ coordinating sheild & sword, cowboy hats, etc....... Jeremy has been bugging me to dress up for Halloween. I wandered about Walgreen's Halloween section in pain while waiting for my prescription & bought some fake eyelashes w/ bling on them. That's all I've got so far. Frankly, I just haven't felt up to thinking about it. Hopefully I'll have some great inspiration tomorrow.......

Mail Call

OK -- so I really only check the snail mail once a month unless I'm expecting something. The flaw in this plan is that sometimes people send me things as a surprise. So -- hey -- it's my birthday again!!!

I was looking for photos of Rob's Dad the other day for a project and found some photos from a trip Paul & Janelle took to LA a LONG time ago.

I think this was the trip when they wore the watermelon outfits to Knott's, but I haven't found any of those photos yet....

I had something that I wanted to rant about, but I can't think of it off hand -- it's probably because it's not late enough.

Pre-school is a fabulous thing. Jeremy has a great time. He wants to go to bed early so that he can get up and go to pre-school. He's learning his letters, finger painting, etc. Rob is also enjoying having some alone time three days a week. I still can't believe it's only $100 a month!

Oh -- NOW I remember!! Non-smoking sections at restaurants! Why do they bother? Yesterday we ate at Outback and the bar was on the other side of our booth. We were in the non-smoking section, but since there isn't any separation, we got tons of smoke. Ugh!!!!

It probably wouldn't have bothered me so much, except that I've got a tooth which is bugging me. Grr -- my dentist is out of town until Tuesday. I think I'll live, but I'll definitely be grouchy. The tooth that hurts already has a crown. So, I don't know what they'll do with it, but I'm sure it isn't going to be fun!

I made an appointment for Rob while I was at it just to share the fun!

OK -- the Office is on -- gotta go!

It's October, Do you know where your gloves, hats & boots are?

It's totally useless to watch the weather reports here. Apparently we live near the edge of the radar area. That combined w/ a small population and weathermen that are younger that some of my favorite socks makes for unreliable weather reports. So when they said we were going to get 8 inches of snow this weekend, I naturally ignored it. That usually means we'll get a few pithy flakes like the bits that fall out of TP packaging. Well, NOT this time! Peter & Jeremy made the snow angels in the back yard on Saturday. They also tromped all over the place and generally made a giant freezing mess!

Well, by Sunday am we'd gotten so much more snow that we couldn't see any evidence of Saturday's tromping. And this was wet snow -- not the powdery stuff we usually get. Despite my better judgement and not having thermals, I decided to shovel while Rob was at meetings this am. Happily I've lost just enough weight to fit into two pairs of pants. I decided that shoveling would count as working out. Well, Jeremy decided to help me. He brought his own shovel -- one that we use at the beach..... Anyway, by the time he and Peter managed to get their gear on, I was done shoveling and Rob came home, so we decided to build a snowman. We'll probably only get 1 or 2 more good snowman building snows this year, so we have to take advantage of the good stuff.

I was scrounging in the garage for snowman parts, when Rob remembered that we had a snowman kit from Christmas last year -- Thanks Emil!!! The snowman looks a lot better w/ those parts than the things I scrounged up from the garage! Peter decided that he needed arms, so he built some T-rex style snow arms. It was above freezing most of the day today, so we had to keep sticking parts back in & he probably won't survive tomorrow. It was fun anyway. I'm attempting to post a snowman making video -- it's kind of long & one of the neighbors down the block started up the snow blower, but I haven't gotten video editing software mastered yet, so it is what it is...for now...

The pipe is for blowing BUBBLES! Is there any other reason for a pipe???

So the other day I had the TV on mute and Peter saw John McCain on it. We really don't talk much about politics, so I was surprised that Peter knew who he was. Peter said, "Hey, that's John McCain. He's a good man." I asked him what he thought about the other guy & he frowned and said, "We can talk about that later," and went back to practicing the piano! Later hasn't come yet -- personally, I've been sick and tired of the election for months!

Welcome to the Dark Side

Hey – Janelle – saw the new blog! Now we need to start working on Bev & Cindy…..remember there is another…….a sister!

This was our 2006 family photo!

I’m going try to post a video using my b-day present….nothing bad happened, so it was pretty good as far as birthdays go.

I was traveling this week. Usually I read 3 books a trip, one on the flights down, one while there & another on the flights back. However, I loaded up on Aspberger/HFA books to read. The one I started on the way down is called, Thinking In Pictures and is written by a woman w/ Aspbergers. I only got through 100 pages on the way down, 0 pages during the week and 50 pages on the first flight back (blogging from SLC airport). The problem is that so much of what she says goes to my very core. It’s like she can see in my brain. It’s very unnerving and I’m not at all happy about it. Unfortunately, there a lot of good coping ideas in there for me and Peter, so I have to keep slugging along. It’s made me very anxious. Up until this diagnosis, I had myself figured out in my own mind and convinced myself that I was normal and everyone was odd. And really, I wasn’t all that different, so I told myself as I kept paddling down the Denial River – or was it the Clueless River? Anyway, I’m definitely on a different body of water now and I no longer think I’m in control and I don’t have a clear path, hence the anxiety. Grrr. I did find a couple of Alexander McCall Smith books that I haven’t read, so I’ll probably read one of those on the last flight and listen to Hunt for Red October. Of course, NOW I know that my Red October therapy is classic HFA…grrr!

On the good news side of things, one of the Asperger books I got for Peter seems to be really helping him w/ the reading comprehension. It’s a story book written for kids Peter’s age w/ games in it to help them understand the story better. Rob is very happy with it. I’m supposed to find more like that……not sure it’s possible. Ugh!

I did manage to meet up w/ my very bestest friend from East/KW in Denver. She married a lovely man & is living happily ever after – Yaaaah!!! We all went through a corn maze. My favorite was the ADA signage in the maze. The path was definitely wide enough for a wheelchair…..but it was quite muddy. It’s a wonder the ADA act didn’t outlaw mud! Anyway we had a good time and the kids think we’re crazy! Hey – we ate a place I saw on the Food Channel – White Fence Farm. It was really, really good & they had a playground for the kids while we waited for our table. Why doesn’t everyone do that?

Speaking of food – I ate at a couple of really expensive places this week. One of them was really good (we should have gone to In-N-Out for the other). Anyway at the good one I tried quite a few new foods. The foie gras was actually really good – although I covered it in a TON of sauce, so it’s possible that I just like the sauce. I also had Mac & Cheese w/ white truffles. I tried a tomato gazpacho – that was horrible. I had salmon that was just amazing – it was by far the best salmon I’ve ever had. Even the spinach was good. Oh, and for desert I had a dish w/ warm chocolate beignets, homemade marshmallows and chocolate sorbet w/ a candied kumquat. If it hadn’t been a business dinner, I would have ordered a second dessert! I’m tempted to catch a flight back to O.C. so I can get more…..well, not so tempted after I think about the price. I think my dinner came out to $100. I’m putting everyone else closer to $150/head including drinks. Our environmental consultant was picking up the tab. They are definitely well paid! OK – gotta go catch my flight. Check out the Pack 94 blog – has photos of the last pack meeting and Rob wearing the Corn Head!

We're not in California anymore, Toto!

Yup -- that's the condo we sold for half a million! You see those pretty flowers out front? They were illegal!!! The association had clear rules that homeowners couldn't modify common areas w/out approval. I was on the board, so I could have gotten approval, but I didn't. Anyway, as I drive around I get reminded that we are no longer subject to wretched homeowners' associations. I thought I'd share some of those reminders. When I'm feeling down, I think of these, or I get onto my old association's web-site & read the board meeting minutes and think about how happy I am not to be dealing with it any more!

Signs that you've escaped associations:

• Easter Egg Lane -- No, that's not the name of the street, it's just my nickname. These five houses are on a well traveled street -- the first house is teal, the neighbor is mint green, the next one is lavender, then bright yellow & finally another teal house! No respectable association would have allowed any of those colors!
• The Libertarian -- When I was a kid, they put up a sign on the chain link fence. It was made of plywood and the letters neatly stenciled onto it: "LIBERTARIAN: Peace, freedom and personal responibility." Sometime within the last ten years someone decided to fix the typo and squeezed in the missing "S" in a different color. One side of the chain link fence was replaced with a rail-style vinyl fence and the sign hasn't come back. I'm pretty sure the Libertarian still lives there though. The shingle roof looked as if it was pretty useless, so they replaced it with a metal roof. It looks very nice, except that they didn't do the attached garage roof!
• The Zebra fence -- This just happens to be half a block from the Libertarian. They have a wooden 6' picket fence -- pretty standard around here. About a year ago, they did some work to the fence. They replaced half of the pickets. It's really easy to see that they replaced half of them, because they replaced every other picket. Since the original fence had weathered the old pickets are a dark brown. The new pickets are yellow in comparison. So even after more than a year, it's a striped fence!
• Unusual application of floor tiles -- Two blocks down from the Zebra fence, there's a house that recently installed vinyl siding on the exterior. However, from the ground to 4' high, they installed ceramic floor tiles on the exterior of the house. They are slate tiles and I think they were trying to go for a stone look, but really, it looks like floor tiles on the outside of the house.
• Lawn sculptures -- There's a mobile home that would be unremarkable except for the fact that they have two bronze birds (hawks or eagles) along their circular driveway and a 10' tall elk bronze at the front door. For the cost of the circular driveway and the bronzes, they could have put a down payment on a real house!
  

I need a separate section for vehicles & vehicle parts as landscaping:

• Old tires: On their side, they make a lovely retaining wall. Standing up they work as a front yard fence. Those really large tractor tires -- you know the ones that I could stand up inside? Lay them on their side in the front yard and you have a perfectly round planter!
• Old hub caps: Is your rail fence looking shabby? No problem - just attach fifty or so old hub caps for an entirely new look!
• Old wheels: If the junk yard is just too far away for you, you can weld together a few hundred old wheels in stacks 2 high for a front yard fence that will keep any toddler in the yard!
• Can't decide what to do with that broken down boat? Build a faux dock in your front yard and tie the boat right to it! You can decorate the boat for multiple holidays or even build a snowman in the boat!
• Wagon Wheels -- Just in case the fact that you've got to drive 300 miles to get to decent shopping doesn't remind you that you live on the Oregon, California & Mormon Trails, get yourself a few wagon wheels, plows & anything rusty for your front yard.

I know I'm forgetting some. If I missed your favorite, feel free to comment! Oh, the last time I checked, I saw a condo JUST like our old one selling for under $250K -- ouch!!!! I feel bad for the folks who bought our house, but not bad enough to give them any money back!

Adventures of the Upside Down Girl -- Next Generation

It occurred to me some time ago that I see the world differently from most people. I was told that it was because I was born in Australia and I'm therefore upside down. Well, it turns out that there is actually a more rational explanation than that: Asperger's Syndrome.

Some of you know that Peter's 2nd Grade experience was not good. After fighting w/ the school for most of last year, several NCSD employees suggested that Peter might have high-functioning autism. I knew that we had to get that checked out, or else the school district could use it as an excuse. Well, much to my surprise, once I started looking into it in great detail, I recognized Peter AND I recognized myself. (Aspergers and High-Functioning Autism are very similar.) The Dr confirmed the diagnosis today. The good thing is that now we can be more aware of what we need to do to help him learn the social, communication, creative writing, interpretation of literature, etc skills he needs. The crappy thing is that now I know that the things I struggle with will always be with me and Peter as well. Sigh! However, I do like a quote made by a successful Asperger lady: "If there weren't people like me in the world, everyone would still be sitting around the campfire socializing." Oh -- one more thing, it does run in families. So, if you are thinking to yourself, "this is just crazy -- Peter is absolutely normal. He does all the stuff I did." -- You probably have it too!

Boston!!!

We made it to Plymouth & saw this replica of the Mayflower. The exhibit was closed, but it was cool to see it. It looks very small compared to the cruise ships we saw in Florida! I would probably have stayed in England.....

Jeremy thinks it was a pirate ship, so I think maybe we'll bring out the eye patches for Thanksgiving dinner this year. Plymouth is approx 30 miles south of Boston. It took us 2 1/2 hours to drive that!!!! Holy smokes! There are a TON of people all over Massachusetts! It's very cute and pretty, but there are people everywhere!

This is Rob enjoying some driving tips from me. When I was in my classes, Beryl was nice enough to give him driving tips in my absence. After all, having Neverlost in the rental car is not enough. All that gal does is recaculate the route and say which way to turn, she totally ignores lanes, speed, smoothness, etc! So last week we had a rental car that barely fit 5. This week I'm in So Cal by myself and they gave me a 7 passenger Highlander. Oh well, that's better than the H3 -- what a joke! The H3 is a total disaster. It's got all the disadvantages of a Suburban w/ the comfort of a Civic!

Rob and Jeremy are imitating the statue in this photo. This is outside the Old North Church where Paul Revere & friends hung the warning lanterns. By the way, Paul Revere looks amazingly like Jack Black -- just in case any casting directors are reading........

The Old North Church still operates as a church, complete with the old funky pews! Each of the pews has a little brass plaque showing the sponser -- lots of historic names there. It also has the first organ in the new world.

We walked along the freedom trail. It's amazing how much of the old Boston survives. The other freaky thing is that there is about twice a much land in Boston now as there was when the colonists started building there. They leveled the hills and used them to fill in the harbor. They also used trash & whatever. The entire airport is on landfill. And a whole bunch of really, really tall buildings. I tried not to think about that as I was sitting in the basement of one of those buildings for 2 days........

This is the mystery retro photo.................shouldn't be too hard, since there weren't that many little boys born close together. I have a prize for the first one to post the right answer!

Chowder, Crab Cakes & Lobster Rolls, Oh My!!!!

We made it to Boston and the Crab Cakes are better than I had imagined possible! Rob & Grandma are sampling Clam Chowder every chance they get. I had a giant, fabulous Lobster Roll in Salem. Yes, THAT Salem!!! Everything is so old! And so close together! And flat!

During the Witch Museum program, Jeremy held on to me for dear life. Then when we left, he said that it wasn't scary at all! I had to download photos today because I've got a gazillion photos of really cute really old houses that Beryl thought were adorable. "Oooh, look over there", "Oh, get a photo of that one!", "Oh, how quaint!" I don't think the plane trip was nearly as bad as she expected, so she just might be getting the travel bug! Maybe 70 is the new 50.

I've Been Found!!!

I know that at least one of my elderly nieces checks out my blog looking for old photos. By old photos she means the 80's, which is really NOT old. Old is clearly from the 70's! Anyway my long lost friend Steph found me!!!! Yaaaa!!!!! This is Steph at Girl's Camp in a French mood. This is unusual, since she was usually in an English mood.

I also dug up a photo of me w/ Steph's Mom. She always had the BEST hair! Anyway, I'm way excited that Steph found me after 20 years!!!! We're trying to figure out a peach expedition, since she lives near a peach source.

Last Saturday was a big day -- Peter was baptized! Yaaa! We also got up at the crack of dawn to see the balloons. The crack of dawn is anything earlier than 9 am, but this time we were out of the house by 6! All of us!!! Anyway, the balloons just sat around because there was absolutely no wind for about half an hour. It was hilarious -- a bunch of giant balloons all bunched up together like ginormous grapes. Then when the breeze picked up a bit, it went West instead of East so the balloons started going the wrong way!

Peter doesn't like cake or ice cream. Ice cream is too cold and squishy and the frosting on cake is too squishy. He has texture issues w/ squishy things. In past years, I've made some pretty elaborate cakes. At one of his parties, Rachel asked me if Rob made the cake or we bought it......I'm choosing to take that as a compliment. Anyway, so this year, I thought it was silly to make a cake for a birthday boy who doesn't like cake. So, we made an Indiana Jonesish Rice Krispie birthday structure. Tasted good but looks funky. I used marshmallow fluff for the glue. There were a couple of treasure boxes filled w/ caramel chips. The cousins only found their way into one of those.....insert evil laughter here.........Grandma Snyder made a tiki statue that looked like a lava sculpture Rob's Grandma got in Hawaii around the beginning of time. Rob made a giant boulder and other assorted pieces. I made the 8 looking thingy. I probably should have thought out the structure a little better -- Rice Krispie Treats are not as structurally sound as they look -- the 8 kept tipping and sagging. And the marshmallow fluff glue dripped everywhere! It's hard to see in the photo, but trust me, it tasted good. I think most of it has been eaten now -- and NOT by me!!!

Peter had a great weekend! He loved getting baptized, seeing all the cousins & getting tons of attention at Primary. He gave a talk on Sunday too!

Life Moves Too Fast!!!

I feel like I'm driving the Red October through Red Route 1 straight for Thor's Twins....."too fast, Katrina, too fast!!!" Why is there less than a month of summer left already? How did my Peter Peanut get to be 8? And did Jeremy really grow 3 inches in the last week? At least they had navigation charts on the Red October! (hum men's chorus music here......)

Rob has been working with Peter on his final Wolf requirements. For their outdoor cooking requirement, Peter cooked steak & hot dogs! They were darn good! Spiderman helped Mom supervise the operation. Actually Dad was supervising, so Spiderman must have been managing. That makes me Vice President, which works out fine because Vice Presidents never have to do any real work.....

Hey -- we are going to Boston in a couple of weeks -- anyone been there? Got any ideas about stuff to do? I've got software training for a couple of days, but I'll have a couple of days to see sights. Hopefully Rob & Beryl won't get lost or tossed in the harbor while I'm in the blasted training classes.....

I don't want to disappoint, so I do have a gripe for the week. Actually, I've got several this week, but I don't feel like writing about all of them. So here's the funny one. We found this magic flooring -- it's inexpensive, looks good and easy to install. Plus it just came out in a couple of new textures/colors that look really, really good. So, we thought we'd get that for the basement. This is the same flooring of the mother-in-law relay post. We put in all the flooring we got in Utah and needed more. Our HD was supposed to have it in last week on the 15th, then the 21st, then 22nd.....then they said we might want to go to Cheyenne or Gillette! Crazy -- yup! So yesterday we got up WAY too early & took off for Gillette sometime before sunrise, bought two pallets of the magic floor, loaded it up in the car (NOT the gas guzzling suburban) and got home about 9:30 am. The folks in Gillette were nice enough to knock $50 off the price, since our store could have had HD transfer the magic flooring down here at no cost to us! Anyway so we've got all the magic floor we need now -- it is really, really fabulous! So, our HD needs to keep the magic floor in stock and learn how to do a store transfer for gosh sakes!

I tried to get Jeremy to do some Kung Fu poses, but apparently SpiderMan doesn't do that. Oh, if you are wondering, these photos were NOT all taken on the same day. Right now Jeremy is usually Spiderman or Batman, sometimes with a light saber. After all, the light saber is the weapon of choice for the modern superhero, no matter what the comic books say!

Are We There Yet?

So, last Tuesday we had the great Mother-in-law relay!!! Rob's brother brought Beryl up to Salt Lake & we drove down on Tuesday to pick her up. The idea was that on Wednesday we'd have a nice leisurely trip back. We did make it down right on time Tuesday, had dinner w/ Nate & Amy, the boys swam in the pool at the hotel & we picked up Beryl late Tuesday.

Wednesday, we slept in a bit. I was up late working on some reports that had to be emailed by 8 am. We ate breakfast downstairs & made it out of the hotel by 10am. Since we were staying downtown, we thought we'd drive past the Temple. Then since we were there, we thought we'd get out and walk around a bit. Oh and our Home Depot was out of the flooring we wanted for the basement, so I looked up a store close to the 15 so we could stop there. Apparently, our flooring choice is very popular & they only had one box. But they told Rob of another store that had tons, not TOO far away.....so the flooring thing ended up taking an hour +. By this time, everyone was hungry for lunch, so we stopped for lunch. Then, we headed north on the 15, because I wanted to get some cherries & maybe raspberries. We did find some of both -- Yaaa!!! By then we were almost to Logan. On the map, it looks pretty easy to keep going North, catch the 30 and get into Wyoming through Kemmerer. If they hadn't been doing construction all over that route, it might not have been too bad. By the time we got into Wyoming around 5:00, Beryl wanted to know if we were close! Once we got onto the normal route, we made pretty good time. Rob thought raspberries were going everywhere -- only partly true! Just when we were at the Goose Egg, this giant deer appeared in the middle of the road! Beryl woke up to the car swerving & Rob swearing. Luckily, the deer went to the other side of the rode (and probably got squished by the semi coming the other way). We finally made it home about midnight. So that's 14 hours for a 7 hour drive, all without any mechanical difficulties or weather delays! Oh, and we took my little greet hornet, so it was nice & cozy all 14 hours!

Friday am we golfed, bright & early! Here's some sounds effects: Rob -- "Where did it go?", "Where did that one go?", "Where is Jeremy's driver?", "Splash", "This isn't my ball out here!", "I'll never find it!", "I'm going to start using Jeremy's balls since I'm out", "Splash". We made it through 9 holes, but I've only included sound effects for the first 4 holes. It's really easy to tell when Peter hits a good one -- you hear this little "hee, hee, hee".

I've also decided that I'm not required to post current photos. So this time, I just picked a couple that go along w/ the car theme.

Title Companies are still evil

Hallelujah the title company just figured it out! The loan is closing today! Yes!!!! They are still evil. And stupid. And we will never use that company again!

Read at your own risk

This is the Jedi Cowboy Stormtrooper custom outfit by Jeremy.

So, last week Rob was at Scout Camp. No big deal, I thought -- I'll just work from home. Ha!!! Then I realized that the biggest loan I've ever done is supposed to close while he's gone. We had one fluff day (today) and if it didn't close (hasn't so far) the project costs go up by $1 million. Yup that's a $1 w/ six zeros.

Cousin Dean (Jeremy does NOT think he's "Little") helped out watching Peter & Jeremy last week -- yaaa!!!! They had the best time. Peter showed Dean how to play Lego Star Wars & Lego Indiana Jones. They saw Kung Fu Panda & Indiana Jones again, and they played at Bev's a couple of days. One day w/ Lylli & Layla. They were so tired every single day! That part went well.

I thought my loan was going OK -- the normal ups & downs. One doc got overlooked that had to be signed by a third party -- ACK!!! But miracle of miracles we got it signed! Things were looking really good Thursday afternoon for a Friday close. Between the time when I picked up P&J from Bev's and got home, everything went to HECK because some doofus brain at the title company is an idiot! Things got worse Thursday evening. I won my own "OK Parent Award" (named after the "OK Driving Awards" Paul gives out.) Peter was frustrated w/ the LEGOs. I had to tell him that when he's playing with LEGOs, it is NOT OK to use the words Mommy uses when she's working........

We thought we were there Friday am, but it got worse. Sigh! I have never worked so hard on something to have it fail so miserably! By the end of Friday, we'd done everything we could, everyone at my company, our partners, our law firm, everyone was working on only this loan. End of Friday I gave it a 15% chance of making. Friday night I ordered take-out for dinner, hey -- on Sunday I made dinner, frozen pizza! Saturday am, I woke up crabby & stiff, the results of too much stress. I started my one Advil every hour routine and by the time we picked up Rob @ 2 pm I was feeling better.

They had showers @ Scout Camp so Rob smelled better than I expected. No loss of limbs or major injuries, so it was a success. P&J were really happy to see Dad. We managed to keep the house mostly clean, but we didn't get any golf in & the yard looked like the Munsters had moved in...

Nothing happened on my loan Saturday......or so I thought. The emails started flowing on Sunday. Someone at the title company realized that they look like a bunch of idiots and found someone more senior who can hopefully fix this mess, but only after getting a bunch of letters from us, our partner, the contractor & our attorney. Oh and they needed all the financial docs resent....grrr!!! But the loan is $1 million under market, so we got all that together yesterday. And now, we wait..... It's 8:30 and I've been at my computer for 2 1/2 hours already. By the way, if the title company doesn't get it figured out, we've got to try to get and extension from the bank (won't be at the same $1 million under current market) and substitute in a different title company. Or we could just can this loan we've been working on for 15 months and start over!

Sigh....Rob took the boys to get milk. We're all out. I meant to go to the store, Friday night or Saturday am, but it didn't happen. I found a web-site for coupons for organic milk, but I forgot to show Rob....sigh! I can not believe how expensive organic milk is -- or that Rob talked me into the organic milk craze! We took the Surbaban into the shop before Scout Camp, so they'd have a whole week to fix the HVAC and a whole list of other stuff. Friday afternoon I took off for a few minutes to go get it, but the darn thing wouldn't start. They are putting yet another fuel pump in it. Hopefully it'll be done today, since we are supposed to drive down to SLC for the mother-in-law relay. Beryl will be with us until mid-August. No, I don't have a good plan B for what to do if I need to be working on this stupid loan tomorrow!

So, if you are wondering what I do for work, I send emails and talk on the phone mostly. Sometimes I do some accounting, write a few checks, etc. Sometimes I analyze deals -- can't have too many new deals! That's where the money is.

It's almost 11 am Florida time and we haven't heard from the title company -- I don't think that's good. Drat! I have noticed that we get a lot of birds in the back yard early in the morning. I think Friday & today are the only summer days when I've seen the sunrise since we moved here.

This photo is Peter on track day. He's having a great time! He obviously has my hair and look at that tan! You can't tell it in this photo, but he's way behind the rest of the kids in the race. This is how I've felt for the last week -- running as fast as I can and not making much progress. I keep checking the emails every other sentence, nothing yet. I guess it's time to get dressed. I'm sure that as soon as I walk away from the computer, the whole loan is going to blow up!