How Someone Can Change Your Life

I wanted to write briefly about an experience I had yesterday while browsing another friends blog. I clicked on one of her many comments because it caught my eye for some reason. Little did I know that clicking on her blog would change me. I would love it if everyone on the planet could read about her strength and about the experience she is going through at this immediate moment. The story is emotional, gut wrenching, and incredibly real. I will warn you ahead of time if you decide to read it, I can almost guarantee that the family will be in your thoughts for quite some time.

The story is about a 40 year old woman with two sons, and pregnant with another. The blog is a journey through her pregnancy knowing that her child Tristan Asher would go from her arms into the arms of Angels. Sounds morbid, sad, and a bit scary, although the message is so much deeper than the words on the page. I think this blog made life so real. As I was having a blast at the shower on sunday, another family was in such pain and sadness.

On Tristan's page are links to other blogs of families going through similar circumstances. I have only read one other story, and right now, it is enough for me. I am overwhelmed by what other families endure every day, their love, their strength, and their courage to share their story with the rest of the world.

www.tristanasher.blogspot.com

The Shower

Saturday morning I headed out the door to Mom's house... again. This time, I was going to help with Dan and Sonia's wedding shower. Jason and the kids stayed home since the shower was for adults only. So, when I got to Mom's house, I was recruited to decorate a 4 foot x 5 foot map of Spain with pictures around it. Are you wondering, why Spain? Well, Sonia is Spanish, her family still lives in Spain, and the wedding will be in Spain in July. There ya go! After a few hours, it actually turned out pretty well, especially considering I am not the most creative person on the planet. I wish I had a picture of it.

Yesterday, sunday, was the actual shower. After all of the set up and decorating was completed, we enjoyed the party. It was so much fun catching up with so many people. I could go on forever about how wonderful the party was, but I'll keep this short. I hope Dan and Sonia had a great time! Congratulations!


Mandy, Justin, and Meara (or as Juliana and Kevin say, "Auntie Meara")

Meara and her Dad (my Godfather), Dan

Anyone Have An Ark?

The most fascinating story I can bring you for the winter is more than likely today. Golly gee, we are getting pounded with rain! It will continue for another few days. I think I am unlike most Californians because I love the rain. It drives me nuts when people complain about the rain, but are the first to complain when the hills are brown. I'll check out the hills tomorrow on my way to Mom's house. I am sure the cows roaming around are loving the rain right now.

Since Juliana had pajama day at school today, she is as cozy as ever in front of the television at the moment. This afternoon, when I picked Juliana up from school, I walked into a dark classroom while all of the children were watching a movie in their pajamas in the dark. Ahhhhhh, that's the life!!! I think if I were Mrs. Braun, I would have caught a snooze while in my pajamas. Perfect pajama weather!

More pictures after this weekend. I am headed to mom's house tomorrow and staying the night so I can help with Dan and Sonia's wedding shower for sunday. It will be a great party! I can not wait!

Quick... Happy (belated) birthday to Bryan AKA Uncle Bryan! I am pretty darn confident that Jason never picked up the phone, since men are too cool for that stuff. So, here is the wife wishing that your birthday was a great one!

My Two Front Teeth

Every time I turn around, the either Juliana or Kevin is doing something or looking a little more grown up, and a little different than the day before. Yesterday was no exception. Juliana FINALLY lost her second top tooth after it being loose for about 2 or 3 months. She was so proud of herself for pulling it out herself. The tooth fairy gave her three coins, so she brought them into our room about 6:35am to show us. Whoooo hoooo! Our baby girl is turning into such a big girl!

No more posts for a while. Just having fun, that's all.

HORRAY FOR PATRIOTS!

GO PATRIOTS! I know my New England family and friends are smiling right now. Kevin wore his Patriots jersey yesterday in celebration for their win! Too bad we are 3000 miles from Foxboro, and a hop, skip, and jump from the Raiders home. That's ok, we'll flaunt the Patriots here on the west coast.

(Ok, so you figured out this is just another excuse to post another picture. HAAAAA!)

Dashing Through The Snow

Another memorable and treasured Saturday for us. We had a late start, but headed up the mountain to Lake Tahoe for the day. After a crazy afternoon trying to find food for Kevin, eating lunch at the grocery store cafe, and realizing that it was 4pm and the kids had not played in the snow yet, we headed down a snowy road trying to find something to do. We went to the Heavenly Ski Resort to watch people ski. Juliana's teacher loves to ski, so Juliana wanted to see what skiing was all about. Her eyes were huge as she watched the lifts taking people up the mountain, and people flying down at 50 mph. A snowboarder nearly took all four of us to the ground too. Jason and I laughed, while the kids were terrified... ha ha ha!


Afterward, we came across a meadow with horses and sleighs. Jason and I thought it would be a fun idea to take the kids, although we did not really expect it to be a lot of excitement. Boy, we were wrong! The sleigh ride was amazing!!! When we arrived, the line was cut off because the rides stop after sunset. We waited about 30 min for our sleigh to arrive.

Once the sleigh arrived, we were freeeeeeeeeezing, yet anticipating our ride. We got on the sleigh with Abraham and Jake the horses and a terrified Kevin in tow. It took about two minutes for Kevin's whole demeanor to change into a frigid happy boy. We roamed through the snowy meadows, snowy hills, and snowy woods. The man taking us around showed us wild animal tracks, a place where they think a bear is hibernating, sang "Jingle Bells", and he even recited Robert Frost poems. What a wonderful sunset sleigh ride!




We headed back down the mountain with two sleepy children to my mom's house. We stopped at my Dad and Dorene's house since they live so close off of the freeway. Dad was not home, but Dorene, and my step-sisters Shannon and Tegan were there scrapbooking. The visit was about ten minutes, but the kids had fun playing together and we got some much needed time together. Afterward, once again, we found it impossible to find food for Kevin. We found out the hard way that most places will not heat up the food we brought for him. After waiting one hour at the Outback Steakhouse, we headed back to my mom's house, starving, We heated up his food to eat, picked up Shadow, and headed another two hours down the road back home to sleep in our own beds. We headed to dreamland quickly knowing we had such an action packed and memorable day together.

Can You Hear Me Now?

Just wondering if anyone within the lower 48 can hear his laugher and joyous love of childhood! His newest thing is to say words with "eeeeee" in it. It started about 2 weeks ago with "Dee Dee". While looking at pictures on the computer, Juliana says, "Kevin that's Dee Dee"... (Aunt Debbie). He immediately said, "Deeeee deeee" and of course Juliana and I laughed hysterically, so he went on and on all night long saying, "deeeeee deeeee". Then the words progressed to "pee pee", and now his favorite is (drum roll) "Beeeeeee". He points to the bees in his room and says "beeeee" over and over and over... and over and over again. Sir Kevin's speech may be delayed, but he is certainly trying his best. Today at lunch, he even said, "peeeeezzzz" for his juice. That is a huge step for him. Sooooo cute!

The pictures above are Kevin pointing to the bees in his room, and other pictures just having tons of fun at home together.


Pictures of our room this past weekend. The TV in the photo is in the shower. The camera conked out, otherwise I would have gotten much better pictures of the room.

Another Martini Please....

Our night away was fabulous! We left home about 5pm and headed for Jason's company party. Ehhhh, that was ok. The margaritias were good though. We left that party and went straight into the city to our hotel.

The hotel was arranged by an event planner that works with Jason and gave us an excellent deal. Boy, she did a great job getting us a gorgeous room. Listen to this. The shower in the room was at least as big as Kevin's bedroom, with at least 10 shower heads, a television, and entertainment system in it too. Along with a steaming room. That sums up the wonderful room we had, with a pathetic view of the roof of a few restaurants. Yikes, I can't complain! After putting our bags down, and wishing we really did just win the lottery, we started walking to the restaurant.

Let's put it this way. I said the phrase, "Another martini please" one toooooo many times and am paying the price for it right now. The amount of laughing we did about absolutely nothing made the night so great. I wish I had pictures with the waiter. He must have thought we were nuts (probably more just us girls, than Jason), and I guess he was right. I can not say enough how much fun we had. We ended our night simply because the restaurant closed at 12:30, so we walked out about 1am. I hope we have another night out soon.

We are exhausted, a little hungover, and not feeling so classy today, but it was all worth it. Heck, it's been 5 years since we've had a whole night out. I think we deserved it! The kids are happy to have us home. I am pretty confident my mom was elated to have us home too. She headed out the door with Shadow about 5 minutes after we walked through the door. A huge thank you to Mom for making this outing happen for us. Hugs....

No pictures. Well I did get a couple pics of our room, but the camera died. Right now the camera is dead in my suitcase, and I don't feel like getting it out at the moment to charge it. If the camera made it through the night, I am not sure I would embarrass myself by positing pictures anyhow. Ha ha ha!

Oprah, EWWWWW!

For my loving family and friends in the deep South. This afternoon while watching a TV show, Juliana says to me...

"Ewwwww, who would want to eat Oprah Mommy?"
"That's gross. Why would you think someone would say that?"
"Because they said it Mommy, let me rewind it."
REWINDING

The show said, "Okra, now that's my favorite..."

Not so exciting news

Sometimes I get the urge to create a new post for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Today is one of those days. Our days have been pretty boring, especially with the windy and rainy days lately. Inside activities is really all that we can do. Today we are going to meet my friend Kristen for lunch, then this weekend we are meeting friends and having our first getaway alone in 4 years. Whoooo hoooo! My mom will be watching the kids here at our house, along with our super scary watch doggy Shadow.

Oh, I did not mention Juliana has had the best week. She began school again on monday and seeing her friends and teacher (who Juliana wishes was her Mommy), and on tuesday her best friend Alissa came back to the United States from three weeks in Quebec. We have a happy girl over here!

That's the new and exciting news. Hopefully I'll take pictures of our getaway this weekend. We'll see. Until then....

Exploring 2008

Did you see Dick Clark on your television late last night in Times Square? We did.... with a pillow firmly planted behind our heads. We planned on watching the San Francisco fireworks from the beach near our house, but the kids were exhausted, and obviously we were too.

We woke up this morning knowing that we wanted to do something fun for Jason's last day of vacation. He looked on the internet for fun places to go. I was looking over his shoulder and saw the SF Exploratorium and said, "Let's go there!" So we headed out of the house for another adventure.

Juliana and Kevin both enjoyed the exhibits. I was surprised that Kevin got so much out of it and was so interactive. They played with bubbles, water, engines, shadows, magnets, smoke, microphones, and much much more. We did not get through the entire museum because the kids were worn out. There is always next time. ENJOY THE PHOTOS.