the pictures are just as random as this post...

*I really hate how in blogger you can't just put your cursor somewhere and say "add photo" and the photo would appear where the cursor was. Seriously, that is really really annoying.
*It's been hot here. Sunday was 110* I like the heat, but that's a little ridiculous. We had an awesome time in the pool this morning though. One good thing about the hot weather is our pool finally gets warm enough to actually get in and not want to get right back out. It's weird how cold that pool can be. Today it was per-fect! We spent 3 hours in it this morning.

*The last two weekends Pete has taken Jake up to the ranch with him. So it's just been me and Megan. I used to worry, worry, worry that some horrible thing would happen if I wasn't there with my boy. I think it's just a control issue. Not that I don't trust my own husband. It's more like my brain says: nothing horrible can happen if I'm there. But that's stupid. I'm getting better at just letting it go and not worrying over nothing anymore.
*Megan is a charm to be with one-on-one. She and I have been to the farmers market together both weekends. The first time she was so excited. She said "oh mommy! thank you so much for taking me here!" I know. She's only 2. But those were her exact words. Too cute! She was so good, in fact, that I took her to Starbucks and got her her very own strawberries and cream frapichino. Ok, let's be honest. I went to Starbucks to get my very own mocha frap, but I couldn't leave my girl hangin'. She was so excited. Usually I make her and Jake share. The whole way home she kept asking: "Dis not for my brudder? Only fo me? I don't have to share?" Just to make sure I guess!

*Last Wednesday Pete and I celebrated our 9th anniversary. I can hardly believe it. How could it be that long? I know it's so cliche' but I can honestly say I love him more now than I did then. I had no idea what I was getting into, to be honest. But I'm so, so very glad I did. I've learned a lot in 9 years. And it just keeps getting better.

*I'm excited for this weekend. I love 4th of July! It has always been my favorite holiday. Fireworks are illegal in our city, so we will be heading up to my mom's so we can one fun night of pyromania!!! Seriously, is there anything more fun than sparklers, Picilo Pete's and flaming roses on a hot summers night?! Can't help it, I love it! We've also been invited to a BBQ at one of my oldest friends houses. I haven't seen them in forever so I'm excited to hang with them again for a while.

*We're also excited for our next camping trip. I just booked us a campsite down in Big Sur. (seriously, click on the link if you're not from CA. it is gorgeous!!) Neither Pete or I have ever been there but I have a feeling 2 days is not going to be enough. It looks like there's just lots of fun stuff to do. Lets just hope our big crate gets back from Alaska with our camping gear in time so we don't have to sleep in the stinky tent again. Lets also hope no one has a repeat performance of tent pukage. :/ Or any pukage for that matter!
Ok I think that's enough randomness for one post...

'bikini' bread

Zucchini bread is now affectionately called Bikini bread in our house. Thanks to Megan. :) Although, I really doubt you'd be wearing a bikini if you ate too much of it.
So I was totally called out by Jake this morning. Megan was sitting eating her yummy bikini bread and I knew Jake was hesitant about trying it. I wouldn't tell him what exactly it was, I told him he had to try it first. So I took a nice sugary, buttery bite for him and put it in his mouth. He ate it, but I seriously can not believe he didn't like it. I mean, I purposely got a piece that had the yummy brown sugar crumb topping on it so he would be more inclined to like it. He swallowed it down, but he just didn't enjoy it.
"you're weird.", I said.
"no I'm not.", he said.
"you don't like anything. You're weird."
"Mommy, you're weird. You don't even like watermelon!:
Guilty.
"And daddy's weird cuz he won't eat tomatoes. And Megan is weird cuz she won't eat pizza or Taco Bell! We're all weird mommy, not just me!"
Point taken, sir!
But seriously, he won't even eat Cool Wip. Who doesn't like Cool Wip??!

Reasons to love summer...

Well Pete is home and all is right with our world again. For the moment anyway. I went to go pick him and the guys up at SFO last night. Their flight didn't get in till 10. I got there at 9. I drove around about 5 times before I finally found the "cell phone lot" which incidentally is like 2 miles away from the airport. I love going to the airport. Maybe that's because I don't go very often. When I was a kid I couldn't wait to go pick someone up. Back in the day where you could actually go up to the gate and wait for your person to come off the plane, or say good-bye to them and watch the plane from the ginormous windows. There's just something about the airport. The hustle and bustle, the excitement to go somewhere or to welcome loved ones. Plus, it's like the best place to people watch! It makes me want to go somewhere. Anyway so Pete's home, the kids actually gave me a whole 2 hours this morning without wanting to sit on me, run around me, or just roll around like monkeys on the floor and so far it's been a pretty awesome day.

On to the picture...I hardly ever talk about scrapbooking anymore, but it is still one of my most favorite things to do. I came across this flickr group the other day and it really got me thinking. Summer is absolutely my favorite season. And I love taking pictures, and I love scrapbooking so naturally all these things came together and I decided to make a mini book about all the reasons I love summer. My scrapbook friends all know I tend to shy away from the mini books, but I really enjoyed doing the December Daily album last year and thought this would be the perfect opportunity to make a similar project only focused on summer instead of the holidays. My approach to this project is just to simply fill it in as I go. I made a list and I'm going to try and attempt to photograph each thing or event and then just add it to this book. Very simple, just the picture and then words to describe it. No fuss. Cuz I totally won't ever finish it if I over think it. Here is my list:

flip flops * tank tops* capris* sidewalk chalk* bubbles* sprinklers* swimming* camping* smores* campfires* popsicles* drive-ins* smoothies* strawberries* corn on the cob* BBQs* 4th of July* fireworks* birthdays* road trips* beach towels* suntan lotion* homemade ice cream* warm nights* gardens* iced tea* lemonade* baseball* county fairs* hiking* long days* farmers markets* sparklers* water guns* sunflowers* water slides* ice cream cones.

The cool thing is I already have photos for a lot of these things. Also, it's totally flexible. I'm sure I'll add stuff as the summer goes on and I know there are a few that I'll end up skipping. But it's a great starting point.

Anyone else want to play along?

Day....i don't even remember anymore

of Pete being gone.

Let me take a step back for a minute. I feel a little bad and somewhat self centered about my last post. I didn't intend on it being a whine fest about me being all lonely about Pete being gone for 12 days. I mean, yes I miss him very much. But 12 days? Right now to us...12 days feels very long. But in reality twelve days is nothing. When I think about all the men and women who are across the world in Iraq or Afghanistan for months or even years, or life changing events like COT training for 5 very long weeks all while leaving their families at home....What the heck am I whining about 12 days for?

That being said...Oh my gosh are we ever ready for him to be home! I'm pretty sure, but not entirely positive that he'll be home on Monday. And I'm also pretty sure I will have to go to the airport and pick him and his buddies up. I dropped these guys off the day the left. The level of testosterone in that vehicle was--insurmountable. A bunch of guys all pumped up on going out into The Wild to be MEN and fish and hunt....Yeah-testosterone overload. {picture: Tim Allen on Tool Time with that manly grunting thing he used to do..times like 100} When I got out of the truck to give Pete a hug, I whispered in his ear: "don't make me do this ever again" hee hee! He just laughed.

Anyway, what was I talking about?

I don't remember either.

The week has been pretty boring. It doesn't feel like summer vacation at all except for the fact that I'm not driving back and forth to school 2 or 3 times every day. It's been cold. And windy. Well, not cold...but definitely not warm. So we've kind of just been hanging out. We did go to the park once and yesterday out of I think pure desperation for something to do, we went to the pool. It was warm enough to hang out and be comfortable outside of the pool. But too cold for my taste in the pool. So we basically hung in the hot tub. Which Jake was like SO ecstatic about. The kid is so much like me. He hates to be cold!


Oh and my computer crashed again. Well, I think I {read: Dell tech guy} may have saved it before it actually crashed. Let me just say this: If you don't have an external hard drive--get one! Get one and store all of your important documents and of course all of your pictures on it. And back it up every month. The sad truth is both Pete and I have become very dependent on this stupid machine. It's funny for me to even say that because we didn't even have the internet at home 3 years ago. I'm not kidding. But how quickly we have succumbed to it's devilish grip! Unfortunately, this is the only computer we have. We store all of our pictures, all of our business documents, I do a lot with photoshop (I've really become dependent just on that one program for both personal and business use), I pay about half of all of our bills online. Not to mention all the shopping, blogging and social networking! If this machine goes down for the count...we might as well lay down with it. Sad but true.

Anyway, I was lucky enough to get all my important stuff off the computer before the Dell tech completely restored the system. For $129 bucks I basically have a brand new machine. The cool thing is, with all that junk gone...this thing runs like a champ! So far anyway. Everything seems so much faster.

Anyway..how random is this post?! Gosh I'm good at random. :) And boring. I promise I'm not this boring in real life.

Day 6

Without Pete here.
I'm still trucking along just fine on day six. However, I do feel that downward spiral just beginning to spin. I still have 6.5 days until he comes home so I guess I'm half way there. Like I've said before, I'm used to it. At first I kind of like it. The fact that I don't feel pressured to have the house all picked up all the time, or a big dinner on the table every night. But after awhile eating out, being lazy and not being in a routine just gets boring. Not to mention the stress of dealing with everything alone while he's gone. Single parents have a LOT on their plates.
The kids are really starting to miss him. Megan has asked me every day "Daddy's gonna be home?". It just about kills me when she asks. And Jake...well, he understands a lot more than Meg does. Sometimes that's good, but sometimes it's bad. Today he said twice "I wish Daddy would come home. I miss Daddy".
So anyway to give us all something to do, the kids and I headed up to my parents houses for the weekend. First stop Grandma Katy's:
We didn't do much but hang out all day Saturday. We went to Target in the morning and the kids picked out a few things from the dollar spot. We spent all afternoon in the back yard just playing and hanging out. Mom has a great back yard for that. :)

I love these new flip flops I got from Target. They're SO comfy. :)
Water gun wars with Grandpa.
Being silly. Orange stained tongue from a Popsicle.


Sunday morning we got up, got dressed and then headed up to my Dad's.

Getting attacked by Dad's dog Sadie.
Being weird.

I really do love going there. It's the house I grew up in and though lots and lots of changes have happened through the years, every time I'm there I think...why don't I visit more often? Plus the kids love it too...there's frogs and fish and dragon flies and llamas and dogs and cats. It's always lots of fun. Dad wanted to take us all out to the movies, so we headed into town and went to see Up. Not my favorite Pixar flick, but definitely a good story. There were 2 or 3 times where I just wanted cry..it's a little sad. But a great story.
On our way home last night we stopped and picked up Caitlin for another sleepover because her mom was still out of town. We were all so tired. All 3 kids had had such a long weekend. It wasn't the best sleepover. Lots of whining and tattle-tailing and of course they were all up at 7am this morning. Today was kind of a long day. ;)
So here's to the next 6 days. I hope they go by fast. Tomorrow I'm getting these kids out of the house for a couple hours at least.

Kindergarten, sleep over and Alaska

Jake's Kindergarten graduation was Friday. This is unfortunately the best picture I have of the event. I didn't realize the 'ceremony' was going to be a school wide event, so even though I got there 20 minutes early, there was no place to sit. So I had to stand in the back to have a chance of getting any decent pictures. Well, not having a good zoom on my SLR and bad gym lighting equals really sucky pictures. :( Oh well. At least we got this cute one with his teacher Mrs. C.

Yes, she is the tiniest person I've ever met. Not tiny as in short (because she's almost my height) but tiny as in ti-ny. Seriously, her hip width is as big around as my arm. When we first met her we thought the kids would knock her down, run her over and surely kill her. But this woman is much stronger in so many ways than she looks! She was an awesome teacher. We were so lucky to have a really great experience for our first time dealing with public schools. I've heard horror stories, and I really feel like we were blessed. Jake did really well on his report card. The Kindergarten report card is basically a list of all the standards: ABC's, sight words, gross motor skills, social skills etc... Well, he got an X in everything which means at or above grade level. The only thing that wasn't marked with an X was music. He got an X the first and second trimesters, but in the last he got a --- which means below grade level. Ummmm......how does one get below grade level in music? In Kindergarten?? I just kind of had to laugh at that.

So yeah. That is that. Kindergarten down, 12 more years to go.

After school was out I ended up with 4 kids. My two and two of my nieces. Apparently during the school BBQ, the girls cooked up a plan to come spend the night at Jake's house. How could I say no? I have to admit, I was a little freaked out. I mean 4 kids all to myself? Pete had hunters at the ranch so it was just me. They were actually really good though. They were up at 6:30 am the next morning (!!!) but they were good. No one cried and asked to go home at 2 in the morning! I call that success. But by around 8 or 9 Saturday morning, Jake had pretty much had it with all the girly-ness. It's hard when there's 3 anyway, someone is always left out. So there was much whining and hurt feelings and pouting going on. Of course there was even more when the girls had to go home. Why does that always happen? They fight like crazy, but then don't want them to go home either.

Oh and as for the crate of camping gear on a boat on it's way to Alaska....you guessed it. Pete is on his way up there for a hunting trip. He leaves tomorrow morning, in fact. He'll be gone for 2 weeks. I've done this many times before but this time I think will be a little different. 1) I won't have work to distract me from the children. 2) School is out, so there is nothing to occupy me in the middle of the day--all kids all the time with no relief. Which, I mean, I deal with a lot anyway, but after the middle of the 2nd week it really starts to wear thin. So I'm hopping to find us things to do. I'll probably go spend a weekend with my dad, maybe go to the movies once or twice and find some play dates somewhere along the way. Hopefully it will all go by fast.

Anyway, that's about it for now. Here's some recent scrappy pages :)