Long Weekend (and Gratuitious Links)

It seems as though it should have been a 3 or 4 day weekend with all I've squashed into it. We went met up at the Theatre with Emily and the girls to see Twilight. I was thrilled! We were all thirlled! It was a great movie! It wasn't spectacular in and of itself but it was Twilight...! It was fun watchin with a 12-year-old girl and her friend, you get a completely different perspective of the movie.... ("I hate what they did with his hair"... "Oh now they're going to make-out"... etc.)

That was after work (for me, after school for the girls) on Friday. Afterward we went to dinner at the Training Table (great food) and had a great time talking Twilight and Disneyland. We were with the little girls we're taking along with us so it was neat to be riding the high of one event and having another one to look forward to.

Yesterday we had planned to stay home and do little-to-nothing. On e we toured the pantry and refrigerator, we decided to run out and grab something quick for breakfast because we didn't have the makings for anything we were in the mood for here. As we discussed locations we wished we had a Chick-Fil-A here in town. All of a sudden, Cindy turned the car around, the doggies were in for a treat, because we were going for a long ride into the city to get Chick-Fil-A breakfast (which was TOTALLY worth the adventure into the city-it was DeLicIouS!) and then we decided to hit the store for a few groceries and remembered that we also needed dog food. What started as a quick errand to give the pooches a short ride and get some eats turned into a day-long shopping trip. We hit Michaels because they were there. Then PetSmart, Whole Foods and Target. It took half the day to do that bunch of gathering. Later we remembered that we didn't have a few recipes with us or a list of the ingredients for them so we had to return home and later we headed to Walmart for the last bits. We should have all of our Thanksgiving incidentals by now...

Today I met with my mom to give her the tags I made for her Thanksgiving treats for her coworkers. I also helped her assemble the bags of goodies... ok, so I tied them and tagged them... I helped. We decided it would be fun to meet at Starbucks and do it, that way I could be in town when Cindy got off work and could pick her up and Mom wouldn't have to come all the way out here to my place. It took a couple of hours to get it done and we had gingerbread and coffee (chai for me) and tipped well while we used the table. It was fun and we're super-regulars so the "kids" working didn't mind (especially since we know how to tip). After we had all of the packets assembled, there was some time before I had to meet Cindy so we went to Walmart to kill time. We looked at clothes and shoes for little-ones and found (and Grammee bought) some sweet Princess shoes for Belle.

I had to drive to the Airport to pick Cindy up and then I had to wait because she had a terrible time getting off... some slacker decided not to show up for their shift and not to call to inform anyone of their intentions. I had to wait in the Park-and-Wait area (where there are no facilities and I was beginning to regret the second cuppa-tea) for 45 minutes, but I had a bit of a snooze while I waited.

Once Cindy was off we went to get my car (which had camped out over the weekend at my sis' place. While we were there, Alex was playing his Wii and the kids had just roused from their naps and were feeling quite silly. Belle was taking inventory of her Tinkerbell things including her Tinkerbell Movie and Movie Soundtrack and finally decided she wanted her poster (from the CD) on her wall in her room (after being asked by both her mommy several times and me, the day we got the CD). Jules was taking inventory of My Keys ("Sha-Sha's Keys"). He knows his name now, "Judi Fop". There's also "Mommy Fop", "Daddy Fop" and "Ablablable Fop".... oh and when Tinkerbell isn't "Lella" (Cinderella); she's "Ablablable" (same as Annabelle). He's also very concerned when he finds a DVD or CD case that's empty.... he asks, very intently for the "C.C.".... It's all quite wonderful!

I'm now sitting in a darkened room, enjoying some sit-down, peace and quiet. Ahh.... Relaxation...

They Came!!

After a year of planning, paying and anticipation, our trip is just 18 days away and today, our travel papers arrived!

The packet looks just like the one we got when we went in April of '07, with a little bit of a different look to the Park Hopper tickets and the commemorative coin is a 2008 (instead of '07). Oh, and we're flying this time - so airline info is in there too.

It's so exciting any time we are heading to Disneyland but especially so this year because it's during Christmas. As I was mentioning to a friend the other day, Cindy and I have always wanted to go to Disneyland at Christmastime and every year we feel the same way -- it seems to self-satisfying to do something so extravagant at this time of year.

We had discussed and even requested time off in April this year after spring break ended (we learned our lesson after the crush of crowds last time). We were planning on going and hoping that Dani would let us take Belle and Jules or at least Belle. She wasn't ready for them to be so far away for so long at that time so we started talking about trying for Christmastime (close to Cindy's birthday).

Things got exciting when we shared our thoughts with Cindy's SIL (Emily) and nieces. Madison (11 at the time) and McKenna (just turning 7 then) were keen on going and Cindy piped in with "too bad you'll be in school, we'd take you with us if you weren't." {{Ok... when using this tactic, be prepared to back up your words because you might get this reply:}}

Madison's wheels were turning - you could see it - and she chimed in with "We're off track when you're going to be gone, we could go with you!"

Good thing we were prepared to back up our words. We did some talking with Emily and the kids, planning fun things to do and left lunch prepared to do battle with Mark (the girls' dad) to bully and cajole (his wife and girls did most of this) him into letting the girls come along with us.

At one point this year, economic crunch smacked down into our reality. They were going to give us money towards the kids fare/admission, etc. but things weren't looking good for them to be able to do so, and we were asked to find out what the penalties were to take the kids off our trip plan. By this time their airfare had been paid in full and the penalties would have been near $700 (not penalties but loss of money because we couldn't get a refund on their fare) so we told them not to worry, give the girls spending money and we had the trip covered.

Now, with just 18 days to go, paperwork in hand, I can hardly believe it's real!!! I'm going to leave the (most likely cold and possibly snowy) land of Utah and travel hundreds of miles to my favorite place on earth just so I can see ARTIFICIAL snow! If that isn't hilarious, I've lost my touch!

A 4-Letter Word that Starts With "F"

At 2 years old (as of Friday 11/14) Julian's newest verbal challenge has me in stitches. He now calls every utensil a Fork.

He doesn't pronounce the word as "fork"... no, it comes out as an entirely different four-letter "F" word that also ends with a "K".

You can imagine the conundrum when his mommy and daddy first heard the word. "Where did he hear that word?"

It was only later that they discovered he was referring to a spoon or a fork. Sometimes the word "Work" comes out as "F..." well, the Julian pronunciation of "fork".

We're all enunciating the "ORK" part of the word now, every time he says "f...." (you know), we agree and repeat "fORK"...

He'll get it, but there are sure to be lots of people looking his direction until then!!!

Twilight

I'm so excited. I'm going to see this on the day it releases... we're not doing the midnight thing - although that would be fun - because we're taking some tweens with us.

We've already bought our tickets and I'm taking off work early that day. I just saw the trailer for the 2nd time on the TV (I'd seen it many times on the computer) and that just made me want to shriek with glee...

Getting Closer....

It's just 3 weeks (and 6 days) until we leave for Disneyland.

In my wait I find that I'm being obsessive about trying to find any information on definite "must see" items for the Christmas season in Disneyland. I haven't found anything new but I look almost every day.

I want to know what the weather will be (not what the record highs and lows are...) while we are there so that I'm prepared. What if I go with all my "average daily temperature" stuff and find I need stuff for cooler weather or warmer weather??

I know, it's just that "perfectionism" that makes me and everyone around me crazy...

I haven't even allowed myself to think about traveling with an almost-8-year old and a 12-year old.... both girls. No, there won't be any D.R.A.M.A....!

Uh, wait, the 12-year old has been all drama since at least age 3!! What was I thinking????

Winter Gathering

I was prepared to take photos of snow covered trees this afternoon and while was playing with my camera, I could hear what sounded like running water and birds. I know there's no water nearby but there could be birds, so I wandered into the direction of the sound and looked up into the tree at the end of the parking lot and there were branches of birds, probably fattening up and gathering for the start of their migration south.

It was so cool to see and so overwhelmingly loud that I had to try to capture it on video. I managed to get a portion of it, and it doesn't exactly do the real life cacophony a lick of justice... but it was pretty cool that I had the camera with me.

And So I Voted!

I'm not really a "voter"... I mean, since I was 18 I think I can recall voting 3 times. But, I'm trying to be a better person and a more responsible American so --- even though I had no idea until the last minute how I would cast my vote. I even considered a write-in... but that seems like, oh, a cop-out. It would be a wasted vote, and though I'm not sure my vote counts for anything (the whole delegates thing has my head spinning) I did it.

I made sure I was caught up in my work so that I could escape a few minutes early - every minute counts when you commute 1-hour each way and there might have been a line. I was pleased and surprised to find that there was no line at the time I got there (I'm sure I wouldn't have gotten the same pleasant result if I were even 1/2-hour later.

It was a painless process. I hadn't been sure, even up to the moment of casting my vote, but I made a choice. I'll have to live with it, so I hope it was the right choice.

If nothing else, this (extremely long) campaign season and election were immensely historic. Gender, Race and Religion have been called into question, some were defeated, based on the above? I don't know? But this year has definitely been HISTORIC.

Santa Baby!

I know, it's just BARELY November... But I'm easily distracted and since I was supposed to make 3 birthday cards today, I was actually locating a surface on my scrapping table that I could possibly use... and I came across a piece of Rusty Pickle Christmas patterned paper. It had been hiding in a cabinet and had become scrunched in several places.

As I was pondering it's usefulness, I decided it would work well for cards, gluestick would hold it sufficiently down so that the crumpled parts wouldn't be too noticable if at all. I was off and running, making holiday cards.

I got to the sticker that said "Santa Baby" and although I didn't have a Santa, I was thinking of how to use the sticker anyhow, when I saw a pile of Imaginesce white flowers. They were half peeking out of a small stash of supplies I'd already used and I was reminded of Santa's beard. A red bling, some blue bling and a pink flower and all I needed now would be a Santa hat. This PP is riddled with Santa hats (although they look to the naked eye like harlequin-diamonds) Cut one out, fold it in half and you have a basic Santa hat. HOW you trim it is entirely up to you! You could just cut it in half instead of the fold but this paper was printed on one side only and I couldn't get that jaunty flip of the point if I hadn't folded it.

The trim is MM Snowflake trim. The bling is Darice (red/clear) and MAMBI (blue). I think the pink flower is American Crafts...