T-ball

Briana's first T-ball game was rained out last week, so today was the big day!! It was also my first game as the official manager of the team!! : ) It's tiring trying to get those 5 and 6 year olds to the right spot at the right time! There was not any big excitement like somebody running the bases backwards or hitting the umpire with the bat, but the girls still had a great time. Briana did really well, and got to play in the pitchers spot (although she didn't actually pitch since they hit off the T!) so pretty much all the plays were to her. She didn't get bored like some of the girls playing outfield who never even touched the ball.



Here she is up to bat.
Running the bases.


Nice stop!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter! We hung around at home, and my parents and Barb and Tom came up for brunch. The kids had a good time hunting for eggs and luckily found all of them!!! Here are a few pics from the day as well as our new chicks we got Friday night. Let's hope these last longer than all the other ones we've gotten! ; )



A little sore

Yesterday my friend Jeni called to see if I wanted to go horseback riding with her. Her friend (who actually lives 3 houses down from me) lets her take her horses out. So we headed down to Cronan Ranch and went for a little ride. Last summer Stacie, the kids, and I hiked Cronan Ranch, and I can definitely say it is much more enjoyable to be on horseback!! Of course today my rear end and back are a little sore. I was trying to figure out when I last went riding, and it must be a good 20+ years! Wow - how does the time fly!? Here I am up on the top of the hill looking out at the snow capped mountains. It was an absolutely beautiful day - warm and sunny. We couldn't believe that we had snow just 4 days before. The views and scenery were spectacular.








I have to include a couple of pictures from our snow day as well. We ended up spending the day down in Roseville getting bids and looking at stuff for the new house. I took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese's for lunch though. They were so excited. They played a bunch of games and rode on all the toys.





Here they are on a "roller coaster"!!



When they went to trade in their tickets for prizes Adam instantly chose the "scary teeth". He got a couple of other little things too, but Briana decided she needed to have a set of teeth as well. So, here they are in all their glory!




Snow day!!



By 6:45 this morning, I'd already had 4 phone calls letting me know today was a snow day. Yea!! The snow started coming down pretty good last night about 6:00 or so. It would have been great if we could have stayed home and enjoyed it, but we were supposed to be at Dennis' at 7:00 for Robb's birthday dinner. My mom came up for her weekly Tuesday visit, and since she has AWD and I don't, we took her car. We finally made it to Dennis' driveway (which is extremely steep) after poking along a road that was completely white with snow. We made it up the driveway a bit and then the tires started spinning. She tried backing down but kept sliding. Luckily she had some cat litter in the car and we used that to help get traction. She made it up about halfway as I'm running along side the car (yeah, that's a visual for you!) and then went off the side of the driveway into the mud. Bret had to finally come and pull us up the rest of the way. (Thank goodness for cell phones!!) Needless to say my mom was not a happy camper.....especially considering the day before she was laying on a beach in Mexico working on her tan!! This morning we only have a dusting left, but the kids don't care. Here is a picture of Briana making a snow ball and then throwing it at the sliding door we were looking out of. Hope everyone else enjoys their day today. I know we're going to!!!


Long month

I know, I know....it's been forever!!! I actually have a draft of a post that I haven't been able to publish because I can't upload any pictures to it. It tells all about the changes that have been happening over at the other house, but you can't see any them! Since the last time I put pictures of it on, we've insulated, sheetrocked, textured, and now painted, as well as had the outside stuccoed. It definitely looks like a house now and not just a construction project. The reason I can't upload pictures now is that Bret put all this stuff on the computer (firewall, spam-blocker, etc.) to make it safer, and now it's so safe I can't do the stuff I want to do. Hopefully I'll figure out a way around it soon.

The other reason I haven't been online for the past month or so is that I've been sick almost the entire time. It started out as some viral flu thing, then had strep, then tonsilitis. They finally found an antibiotic that started to work (third one was a charm!!), but then I had an allergic reaction to it and developed a rash over my entire body. The worst part was having it on the bottom of my feet - yikes!!! They put me back on the second antibiotic and I had the same reaction, so I ended up off all antibiotics. I had no voice for 3 weeks, which I'm sure my students thought was a great thing!! Now I have pink eye in both eyes so I'm home again. My doctor recommended, since it's highly contagious and I have 135 students today, that I not contaminate all of them. What a party pooper!! : ) Hopefully this will be the last of the "gunk" I get this year, but as soon as I think that....it's something else! We'll just have to wait and see!

Hope you're all well and healthier than we've been this year! I'll try and post again before another month goes by!!!!!

House update

This is the post that has been sitting as a draft since I don't remember when. Bret finally figured out how to get this back working. Yea!!! So I've added some pictures and I'll now be able to post it!!








It's been a long time since I've posted, because I've been sick for weeks and just haven't been on the computer for any length of time (and with dial-up, posting all these pictures takes a great length of time!!!!). I figured it was finally time though.

So, since the last time I've posted, the garage has been sheetrocked.

The house has also been insulated.

And it has been sheetrocked as well!

Finally, here is Briana in "her" bathroom. She's a little excited! She will be so disappointed if we end up not moving over there!!

Since I've taken these pictures the house has been stuccoed as well. I haven't seen it yet, but Bret says it looks great. When I see it and get pictures I'll post those as well. Things are really starting to move along. Bret says I'm holding things up now because we're at the point where cupboards need to be picked out and appliances bought - all the things I'm in charge of. Guess I better get my act together - if I could just ever get well!

Brrrrrrr



It has gotten quite chilly around there the last few days. The highs have been in the upper 30s and low 40s. Not real pleasant weather for being outside. We started to head into town today and thought I should get a picture of the pond before it starts warming up (if it ever starts warming up!!). The waterfall is still running but it's covered with icicles. And the pond is pretty much frozen over. The fish are all huddled together on the bottom with a nice solid layer of ice covering the whole thing. I think we might get out the ice skates this weekend. : )


Bret's new car

Well, it's finally here. Monday afternoon Bret got the call that his car was in. That meant the kids and I got to drive him down to Roseville to pick it up. Needless to say....he's a happy boy!!! Last night he took me out to dinner so that I could ride in it for the first time. He even let me drive it home! : ) Yeah, a ticket is not far in his future!! He he!!

Gramma's 80th

My Gramma turned 80, so Sunday we had a surprise party for her down in the Bay Area. It was a lot of fun to see family I hadn't seen for quite some time (and others that it hadn't been that long!!). She was very surprised which means we all pulled it off.

Here is Adam helping Gramma open her presents. What a helper!!

While we were heading that direction anyway, we decided to go down a day early and hang out in Half Moon Bay. We first stopped in Pacifica and wandered around the beach a bit. It was a gorgeous afternoon - no fog or wind. How often does that happen!?!

We stayed in a hotel for the night. You would have thought it was the first time we had ever stayed in one. The kids were sooooo excited. They jumped on the bed, wrestled, and ran around like crazy people.

I took them to my old hangouts. We also stopped by my Elementary School (boy has it changed) and my high school (some changes there too!). It was a fun weekend although it made it all the harder to go back to work Monday after two weeks off. We've almost made it through the first week. Only one more day to go!!




Happy New Year

It's a new year, so I thought I would give my blog a new look. Nothing like a little change now and then. I hope everyone had an enjoyable, safe New Year's Eve. We stayed home so that made it easy. Our friends David and Shannon came over (and of course the boys too), and we had a very nice evening. The kids outlasted all the rest of us!! I don't know how they do it. I was pretty proud of myself for staying up so late, especially knowing Adam (who was the one kid that went to bed early) would be waking me up early, pulling the covers off, saying "It's light - get up". Right now that's not too bad because the days are so short. He better not still be doing this in the summer though! : )

We're looking forward to 2007 and the adventures that await us. We'll be sure to post our more memorable moments here. Wishing you all a happy new year as well!!!