Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Countdown to Christmas

Walker finally went back to school today. I was able to get all the gifts wrapped and relocated to the basement for easy "loading" up to the tree on Christmas eve (as opposed to the cold attic where they were).

Scott is back up and about. He went off with Ed this morning to get some new tires for his newest project car. He gets the stitches out of his nose tomorrow. He'll be glad about that. It's been bothering him. Sinus surgery looks much more painful than anything I've ever had done. Poor guy. He's on the mend, though, and should be back to normal pretty soon.

I'm waiting to hear from Walker's teacher. I don't know if I'm supposed to bring things in for the party today, since the party was supposed to be yesterday. I left her a message and am just waiting. I can be there in 15 minutes if she wants. But it's just waiting, while I could be at Wal*Mart finishing up a couple of things. Oh well.

I've got to go to Steppin' Out this afternoon to finish my costume orders. They are now officially late. But that's only because of all the cancellations. I would have had it all done 2 weeks ago. Can't believe we are that far into the year already.

Walker starts back to hip-hop after the holiday break. I'm more excited about it than he is. The way he's been going with his activities he's going to want to quit in about 4 weeks. I won't let him, though. It's not fair to the teacher who is letting him and Lucas join the class very late and putting them into the choreography. Plus I've already paid for his costume. He's in now until recital time.

We're supposed to have a Tiger Cub den meeting tonight. I feel like I have so much OTHER stuff to do! It'll be fun, though. We've also got the last rock climbing class this afternoon. But Walker doesn't remember that, so we may just skip it. Too much running around.

Monday, December 22, 2008

California Dreamin...

You'd think we would definitely be in the Christmas spirit by now, what with all the snow! But all I feel right now is weary. ALL of last week there was no school due to the power outage. We had no electricity for 9 days. Ugh! Today there is no school again, due to a huge snowstorm we had last night (Sunday). Not to be confused with the last huge snowstorm that blew through on Friday night. Scott and I spent three hours with the new snow blower and electric shovel. I'm moving to San Diego. I think I finally know what "weary" feels like.

At least the snow makes for some cute pictures.

That is a lot of snow on my car.

The snow is up past Walker's waist.
Scott and the industrial strength, new snowblower. Good thing he got that little red shelter thing. You really need it cuz the snow flies back up into your face without it. It is fun to run it, but not for as long as we needed to. It's a total body workout. Ow, my arms and back!

Climbing up.

Sliding down.


Into a pile.
Later we made snickerdoodles. That was fun. It was easy. One of my students gave me the "kit." All we had to do was add butter and an egg. Yummy. Hopefully, we will be able to save one or two for Santa.
I still have a lot of cleaning to do. Everyone is coming here for the holiday. I haven't even decided on a menu, never mind actually go out and buy anything. I also have a lot of wrapping to do. Looking forward to December 26.


Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Thanksgiving weekend fun

We had such a good time Thanksgiving weekend. We had people over a few nights. Lisa was the first "victim" when she came over to take our Christmas photos. Unfortunately, I hadn't yet received my new camera, so all the singing antics with her live only in my memory. Next time we'll get you!

The day after Thanksgiving Coreen, Steven and the girls came over. They brought a friend, John. We had a great time singing. Even Amanda got to sing before the men came upstairs. I dressed her up in Rock Star gear.


How sweet and innocent they are: Amanda, Lillyin, Walker.


I love the faces, especially Lilly's - she looks like she's a little nervous about her crazy friend.


Coreen and Steven singing while Scott listens.


Coreen looks good on the mic.

John and Scott.

The next night, Saturday, the Lapierres came to play. Walker was very excited because he hasn't had a chance to play with Danny very much this school year with everyone being so busy. Walker was only upset for a while when Danny came up to sing with his mom and dad. Everyone loves singing with us except Walker. Figures.
Danny and Shelly.
Proof that Shelly will sing. She took a while to get into it, though. She was the toughest "nut to crack." The last time she came over she didn't get on a mic at all. Everyone else always does the first time even if it takes a little while.
Danny and Tom. Like father, like son.
Even I was there.
Walker and Danny played a lot of Fusion Frenzy that night.
Scott and Tom belting out a tune.

Monday, December 08, 2008

New Christmas Camera

I just love my new camera. I am having a lot of fun with it. I never saw the need before. Thought film was just great. Now I can take and retake pictures until they actually look good. A lot of them DON'T! Who knew?! Have I mentioned this camera can even take movies? I love it. I don't know if I can get a movie here, though. Do I have the knowledge and power? I'll try. I took a short video of Walker making banana bread with me this afternoon.

OK, just tried that and no success. I'll figure it out later. Here is a "still" of it. Walker lost one of his front, top teeth Saturday morning. The tooth fairy came again and left him a $1.00 coin. Very exciting.


Yummy banana bread. We had 4 over-ripe bananas and it turned out very good.
We went over to Laurie and Audrey's house yesterday. We hadn't seen them in a while. Audrey is growing so big. She'll be 5 this weekend. The kids had a good time "catching up." We're going to Audrey's birthday party on Saturday. It's at Party Playland, the bouncy house place. Fun!


Walker and Audrey at Audrey's house.



OK, here it is, finally. It took a while to upload, but it worked. My experiment worked. Now we'll just have to get something actually video worthy - maybe Saturday at the bouncy houses...




Friday, December 05, 2008

A Day in Dover

Coreen has given me another bunch of pictures. She's so good about that. These are from a great day trip she and I made in early September with Walker and Lillyin. The plan was to go to the Children's Museum in Dover. We did that, but we also ended up going to the Garrison Hill Tower, Chili's Restaurant, the Dover Falls, and a petting zoo. We were all tired by the end of the day. Oh, we also hit Dover Point Playground and Park. What a day! Can't wait for the warm weather so we can do it again.



Lillyin and me in the music room at the Children's Museum.


Walker and Lilly in the mirror room.


Lilly and Walker playing this cool game where you try to move the ball with just your mind. The more relaxed you are the better you plan. They went back and forth for a long time before Walker won. I tried it with Coreen and she totally kicked my butt! Walker was next to me yelling at me to relax and there were about 25 people standing around watching. I've got no calm under pressure!


Walker and Lilly in the art room at the museum.

At Dover Falls.

Walker and Lilly on the tower. A lot of people think they are twins. Walker is actually 13 months older than Lilly. They are very cute together. Same energy and craziness!
Way up on the tower. Good work out getting all the way up there.
The petting zoo.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Old Camping Memories

Coreen gave me some pictures from Whit's End. I also just had some old film from that trip developed. So here they are... finally. Some of this trip has been up here before, but most will be new to the blog. I miss summer.

This trip was fun. Me, Scott, Walker and Kaylee went with Coreen, Steven, Amanda and Lillyin. We stayed 4 nights and 5 days. When we first arrived we didn't like the placement of our two sites. They were big, but no close trees for tying tarps. They also seemed very far away from each other, even though they were adjacent sites. We got permission to use a different site and the owners of the campground allowed us all on just one site. We set it up so that we had plenty of tarp space in between the two campers. Good thing because it rained the first 2 nights of the trip. The Bear Camp River almost crested. Scott and I stayed up until 3:30 one night, to make sure we weren't flooded out. Not this trip. Good. The river ended up going down over the next couple of days, so we were able to finally do some tubing down the river. Fun!

Walker and Lilly going a bit stir crazy. Too much rain.

Walker and Lilly playing a camp favorite, Staplemanchen.
All 4 kids playing Staplemanchen. It's amazing what they'll do camping that they'd never even consider if they were home with all their high tech games and such. It's one reason I love camping.

A little respite from the rain. It started up again a little while after this, but at least we were able to sit out around the fire.
Rain can't keep Scott from cooking meat on a stick.
Another rainy afternoon. Scott and I were playing cribbage.

Kaylee, Scott and Walker. Still raining.
Playing connect 4. You can see the water dripping off the tarp. At least it wasn't freezing.
Finally, some sun. Everyone line up and lets get to the pool!

We had the pool all to ourselves this day. It was great.


Ah, sun and fun.
No rain!


Getting ready for tubing.

Tubing.


Walker, in front of the Weather Channel forecast. It was foreboding. We should have scrapped the whole plan for that next trip, but we didn't. Pictures coming some day. That next trip was the one with the death and destruction. We were excited to head out to Ames Brook.

Friday, November 28, 2008

After Thanksgiving

Happy Post Thanksgiving! We had a wonderful day at my in-laws, Rita and Charlie. It was fun and yummy.

Rita gave me my Christmas present early... It's a new digital camera! I'm so excited. It came with a photo printer too. I'm so not technical, but I'm trying to figure it out. I got my first batch of pictures uploaded to try here.
The upload process is pretty slow... now I need a new computer!

Meet my new camera. Yippee! This is the best gift I could have gotten. Just what I needed and wanted.

Scott's brother, Uncle Ed.
Scott's dad, Grampie.
Me and Scott.
Grammie and Wags.
Walker and Scott. Happy Thanksgiving.