Orbit

I'm on a roll here. While mom was visiting over Easter - I got her to snap a photo of me on Orbit. We've started jumping again and it feels SOOOO good! I'm finally strong enough to entertain a little excitement over the fences. Hopefully, I'll keep my butt in the saddle and keep improving.

Tahoe

Well, it's been a few weeks now but when I have a lot of photos, I tend to just get stuck in the blog post. I have finally transferred most of my photos to alan's computer and am feeling organized enough to post this.
Well - we did the Tahoe thing. Our spring vacation. We went up from a Sunday to a Wednesday and brought our dear babysitter Sarah. So - it actually DID feel like a vacation! Thank goodness for a DVD player in the car. While Kiira can entertain herself for several hrs, Evan, well, let's just say he's one.

It was a lovely, non eventful drive up with Kiira gawking as soon as we hit the snow. She had been talking of seeing snow for about a month and had even done a countdown. So, seeing snow is equal in excitement to her as getting on an airplane. Which, to give even more perspective, is right up there with Santa Claus.

The "non eventful" part stopped as soon as we got there as Evan started puking. In retrospect, he was quite considerate. He was sick from about 3 pm to 7 pm and then passed out from exhaustion and slept thru the night. Every time Kiira has been sick she seems to love that 2 am time to wake up and then is up till about 5 am. Not my favorite time to be up if I may say so.

Well, things turned around the next day and Alan and Kiira went skiing while Sarah and I stuck around to play with the little guy. He had made a nice recovery by the morn so we went and played in the snow. He was quite a trooper as it really was his first time seeing snow.

Kiira had a great time and decided she liked skiing with both mommy and daddy (mommy joined them for the next two days). Her courage is improving (I think that is about the only thing mom contributes - not being an expert skiier herself) and with Alan's expertise, so is her skill. She actually rode the chairlift and seemed to like going down the "big" hill more than the bunny slope.

We enjoyed a lovely dinner out with Alan's cousin and her family and did get to talk to them thanks to Sarah being there and staying with the kids that night.

In sum, Tahoe Donner was a great place to take a family. We rented a house which really was only about 5 min drive from the slope. The house had a back yard for some snowman making/sledding and also a nice enclosed hot tub for everyone's enjoyment as well. Besides hearing the word "dude" WAY more times than we cared to remember, it was a beautiful, relaxing vacation that didn't even break the bank!

Strep

Well, I am the eternal optimist but this time I'm not sure it is going to pan out. Kiira still had a fever - over 24 hrs later - and a headache - and most recently this afternoon - a sore throat. As much as I didn't want to listen to mother's gut instinct , I knew things were pointing to the "s" word. I called the doc and luckily avoided urgent care. They squeezed me in in their sister site in Mill Valley. The doc had Kiira open her mouth and went, "Ewww...yup...judging by the puss, she has strep throat." No additional test needed (which relieved her fears of needing a shot since that is what she had last time she went to the doc) So, yup. Here we are. Luckily she said kids under 2 generally don't get strep yet. Fingers crossed for Evan.

Oh yeah, and the computer update. A new one may be in the future. Needs another $200 of work and since I possibly have something that i don't need now in my computer (since it is still crashing and giving me the same error messages) perhaps I can work my wiley magic and get a deal....stay tuned.

Down and out

Yes, the computer is on the fritz. AGAIN. It was in the shop last week for a week and I expected everything to be hunky dorey when it came back with it's new hard drive. No such luck. Alas, it crashes STILL. Everyone says that 3 years is about the time you trade in/up (I'm at 3 yrs now) but that seems so soon to me! I mean, realistically the kind of machine I need is going to run me $1200 and geez, who has that lying around? Alan happened to have this mac lying around (who has an extra computer lying around?) so that is what i am now using. Of course my outlook is on my pc so that means I am without email/calendar. We also don't have any word/excel/photo manager on this computer so sigh.....everything takes me twice as long. Oh well, at least on the bright side, I have a computer to blog with and tell everyone i don't have a computer.

Starring Kiira White in "Butterfly garden"

Plus you get to see her haircut again.

Finally posting the easter photos

Well, I posted the photos on ofoto.com so let's see if i can get you access to them. They are in two parts as there are quite a few! Ok, I trialed this and even though the box is black, if you click on it, it will take you to the kodakgallery where all the photos are. Give it a try!

Trying to post a movie

Here goes. Kiira with her new haircut...let's see if it works.

8 inches on the floor

Following in her brother's footsteps, Kiira too, requested a "short cut". She has been asking for some time now to get her hair cut and I just liked it long. Finally I reconciled with myself and told her she could get whatever she wanted. So, now she has what i call the Katie Holmes (the first one without the bangs). I think it actually makes her look older!

First haircut

Well, it was finally time. Evan got his first haircut. Mind you - just the back. He was starting to look like he'd be playing for the Calgary Flames soon. And, what with my baggage of having a shag cut a good part of my younger years, I decided this "shag" portion had to go. Did he stay still you ask? No, is the question. So, in order to accomplish this fairly lofty goal, I stuck him in the highchair (which is the most use it's gotten in about 3 months) with a chocolate, watching TV. Now, if only the Panda Room had such devices.....

Back to the living!

Well, yes, for those of you wondering where the heck I have been, I will just say this. Twas not I, but my computer. It was in the computer graveyard. We have now resurrected it from the dead and with the help of a whole new hard drive, we are back in business. That doesn't include the full day it will take me to load all the rest of my programs on, then call the respective tech supports when they are not working. So, bear with me while I get this all figured out and I will try to post something interesting. In the meantime, what I have to post is:

- a family trip to Tahoe
- Kiira and Alan fly to Boston
- Kiira's new "shortcut". Yes, it is short! Her choice.....

A night out

Well, we rarely get out anymore but we did venture up to Rohnert Park of all places last Friday night for a Live HBO taping of Dana Carvey. As he said, if he is going to do a live taped performance, it has to be "in an old church, by the side of the freeway, in Rohnert Park". A question probably all of us were asking ourselves. He lives in Mill Valley as it turns out and doesn't particulary like to fly. Well, that alone could explain it. Kinda wacky - we couldn't leave once in the 1500 seated venue for fear of messing up lighting for the taping. So, people were warned, rewarned and given several potty checks before the show started.

We travelled by limo thanks to a friend who had it pre-arranged and munched on sandwiches, yummy olives and a delightful chardonney as we drove up (about 1 1/2 hrs with traffic).

Gotta say - it sure is nice to have a good belly laugh every now and again....

Nothing like a good Jewish easter egg hunt

..Happy Easter to all! Here are a few of our photos. We had a smashing good time at the kid easter egg hunt we hosted. Everyone got a few and few got away. When I find the photos of the kid egg hunt (or spring celebration as I say to my Jewish husband) I'll post them. In the meantime, here is actual easter day with mom visiting and Jenny coming for dinner!

When the mother ship is down

...it's not pretty. But, no rest for the weary. As you can tell, the demands keep'a'comin.

Good friends

This is a bit after the fact but a few weeks ago our good friends came for a visit. We met them while we lived in England (they came from Chicago and have since returned there from England) and hadn't seen them since. I met Ruth when we were both getting our US fix while browsing Gymboree in Richmond, England. We hit it off right away and soon became each other's sounding boards for what we missed about the states, what was cool about England and then we both joined the American Women's Club. Kiira and Lia are both the same age and it was wonderful to finally meet the "little" siblings whom neither of us had met. Kiira and Lia, after the initial 10 minute shy period, hit it off and were giggling like they hadn't missed a beat.