Sunday, Monday, Un-Happy Day!

Oh what disappointment. You may remember how I've mentioned that occasionally our school is able to get a "celebrity" to come to an event. Last year we had Dakota Fanning, and earlier this year it was Cody Linley.

The children knew who these people were, oh yes indeed.

But today...today was supposed to be Mr. Henry Winkler.

The Fonz.

I was SO excited! (The kids? Had no clue who he was.) Took time off work to volunteer at the Book Fair, attend the parents' pastry & coffee hour, (er, which I totally would have done anyway) and to see Fonzie. Um, I mean Mr. Winkler.

Did you know he's an author? Of children's books? He is! Stories of Hank Zipzer...a dyslexic fourth grade boy.

But his filming schedule was changed, and he had to cancel. He promises to reschedule. I will keep my fingers crossed!

Until then....ayyyyyy!!!!!!!

How many muscles are in the human body anyway?

Seriously people. On Sunday I took a very beginner's pilates class. The kind of class that one gets suckered into at a fundraising gala. It's a "party"! There will be wine and cheese after the class!

There was wine.

And then there was WHINE.

Three days later...I still feel those muscles.

I think those muscles are unhappy with me for ignoring them for so long.

I'm going back next Sunday. No more wine, and hopefully a little less whine next week. We shall see. You know I will keep you posted.

When the LIGHTS go down in the city...

Friday night, this is where we were....the legendary Whiskey a Go-Go on the just-as-legendary Sunset Strip. The band is Lights, and it is a tribute to the music of Journey.




After a baby-sitter scare (our sweet Emily was in a car wreck - she's fine, her car is totaled), and a super-mom rescue (Shan took both girls for the night so I could still go to the show), August and I met up with friends for dinner and headed to the strip.

Our friends enjoyed the show...and they are good friends, too, because August didn't go on until after midnight! That's late for people of our advanced ages. So, thanks to Steve and Stacy, Barb and Rob, and Cynthia and Lee for coming out and staying up LATE!!!

We got to the Whiskey at the SCHEDULED start time of 11 p.m., only to learn that it would REALLY be midnight, so we went across the street to Hustler of Hollywood.

That was interesting.

Stacy almost bought some red sequined, fringy boots. But she didn't. They were very Dorothy Gale goes Girls Girls Girls (dancing down on the Sunset Strip). {Can't seem to get off the lyrics theme...}

She looks good in red, as you see here...but they weren't comfortable as it turns out.



Lastly, one would think that after all these years of going to shows and taking pictures and being a person that LOVES a good picture, that I would have a camera that takes a decent picture in a dark club.

But, clearly, that is not the case.



But you get the idea...cute guitar playing husband, excellent music, good times! The show was excellent! This is only his third show with this line-up, and he's happy to be playing with them and they are happy to have him!

It's Sunday morning, and I just now, after a good night's sleep, feel recovered!! Woo hoo!!!

Things of late

So, what's been going on?

Oh nothing, the usual.

I've been working and doing laundry and working on the girls' school's yearbook.

Kennedy has been working on a science project that has something to do with propane and required the use of popsicle sticks.

August has been working and playing his guitar, preparing for a show at the Whiskey A Go-Go this Friday and another in Redondo Beach on Saturday.

Samoa has been shedding.

And shedding.

And possibly I'm allergic.

And Brooke, well looky here...it seems Brooke has had a growth spurt!

Wow, guess she's probaby outgrown all her clothes. I did all that laundry for nothin'!

Here is a nice candid shot of her entering her sister's room while her sister had some friends over last weekend.

Is that the face of innocence, I ask? Because sometimes a mother cannot see through her rose-colored glasses. I look at those round cheeks and that mouth of missing teeth and I see sweetness. But there's a little something in the brown eyes that speaks...not of sweetness...but perhaps just a little bit of little sister wickedness?

Is it my imagination?

You can tell me.

Oh, wait. Look here. It WAS my imagination!!!

Have a glorious day, it's almost Friday!!! Hurray, the weekend is coming!! More laundry! (Just kidding...)

Tongue Tied

Sometimes all you need to succeed is a gimmick.

Take, for example, the rock band KISS. They had their very own army, for crying out loud, yet when I listen to their 1970-something lyrics today, I say (right out loud to my husband who has a KISS belt buckle), "they would have never made it in today's time".

Their lyrics...are stupid.

Like for instance:

Get up
And get your grandma outta here
Pick up
Old Jim is workin' hard this year
And baby
Do the things he says to do

What? That doesn't even make sense. Perhaps the chorus will clear things up.

Baby, if you're feeling good
And baby if you're feeling nice
You know your man is workin' hard
He's worth a deuce

Yeah, well...not so clear after all. Who the heck is Old Jim, and if he's old, why can't Grandma stay?

And do not even get me started on that song "Love Gun".

But they had a gimmick. They put on loads of makeup, had cool costumes and huge platform shoes.

Well, as it turns out, we may have a young member of our family with a future in rock and roll. It's too soon to know if he has musical talent or songwriting capabilities, but that (obviously, see above) is secondary to the gimmick.

And, Cooper, you got the gimmick DOWN!!!

P.S. I will admit for the record that I DO like two KISS songs: Strutter and Beth. Those songs rock. They rock all night long and party every day.

I waited all week for this?

I was out of town the past two weekends.

I had a very busy week at work, and will have the same next week, too.

It's gorgeous here in Sunny California.

But I feel like all I've done all weekend...

IS LAUNDRY...

ARGH!

Spring has Sprung!

I do hope that you and yours had a lovely Easter weekend!

Samoa had an eventful week. She was bored early one morning before the rest of the house woke and ate AN ENTIRE CONTAINER OF FISH FOOD. Red flaky flakes.

And I do believe that I have mentioned (admitted) that the dog loves to relax on the couch. And eat her treats on the couch.

And get her lifetime dose of omega whatevers that are in fish (food). Which ended up being a soggy red mess on the couch. Thank goodness for scotchguarding.

So then I find a small container of fish food at the grocery store so that the poor little fish do not starve.

Next morning I awake to find Samoa halfway through this container as well. Seriously? Good grief.

And while Kennedy and I were in Texas this weekend, the story is that she ate two chocolate bunnies, which she would have had to sneak out of the closet out of two separate bags.

She looks innocent enough, yes?

The girls had a nice Easter afternoon. We relaxed and had a nice lunch at a place we'd never tried before. (And we silently mourned the restaurant that had been there before...we will miss you Killer Shrimp!)

The Easter bunny came and hid eggs for these two sweet faces...

Because we DO believe, oh yes we do!!!

And this one is losing teeth like nobody's business. No recession for the tooth fairy, no siree!

HAPPY SPRING!

Also, I've posted pictures from Easter here, and from last weekend in Texas here.

She was a Great Grandmother

It is with a heavy heart that I type this post for not even 45 minutes ago, in the wee hours of the morning my dad called to tell me that my grandmother passed away this morning.
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Not everyone my age still has a grandparent, much less has a grandparent that still calls them "sugar".
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Not many kids my daughters' ages have great grandparents, much less great grandparents that know everything they like and go out and shop for them and send them sour gummy worms and special Easter bunnies.

I will miss her so much.

After I hung up with my dad, I went back in bed and cried while my husband hugged me. It wasn't a surprise, I know, but still...
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I went to see her last weekend. I told her that I loved her and that she had been the best grandmother. Because she had been. Full of unconditional love and the occasional pound cake put in the mail.
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She is in a better place today than she was yesterday.


But still, I will miss her so because it's hard to imagine a world without her.

Dead Ant Dead Ant

Two weekends ago, August and I went to the school's annual fundraising Gala where drinks are served in hopes that parents will get sloshed and bid on all kinds of interesting items.

Like. This.

A big ole basket of Pink Panther stuff that my friend Susie's husband donated from his company, MGM Studios. I'm a sucker for pink.

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So, I placed a bid. The beautiful thing about me and drinks and fundraising events is that the more I drink, the less I remember what I want to win, so USUALLY I will bid on something at the beginning of the evening, then forget to bid on it again and I will not win the bid.

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Not this time.

But as it turns out, this might be the best thing I ever bid on and won! It was full of Pink Panther movies...including the old school cartoons. Brooke LOVES the life-size Pink Panther and the wee little soft Pink Panther. It's been over a week, and she still carries them around.

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She is also addicted to the old school cartoons, and this weekend while I was in Texas, she and her daddy had a Pink Panther marathon.

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She was so inspired, she started drawing... Check out the BOOM! and the POW! These old school cartoons were a little violent, yes? Plus I had to field the "Momma! The Pink Panther is SMOKING!!" comment.

Clearly this basket was a good deal...Brooke is happy and the money went to a good cause.

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She also drew a lovely picture of Samoa, who really isn't a bobble head in real life.

Arf.

Talent, pure talent

Oh how I envy people with good cameras and photography skill!!

Brooke has a friend with a photographer dad, and occasionally he comes to school and takes pictures. I had him send me some photos for the yearbook (my current project), and he included some that he took last year.

I had not seen this one of Brooke...little 5 year-old Kindergartner Brooke.

This is one of the ones I wanted for the yearbook...two boys currently in Kindergarten. He shot this randomly in the after-school program. I love it, it's my favorite shot in the yearbook so far. This man has talent.


And lastly, he took this photo last year. Look at the moment that was captured. Emily and Brooke, playing and laughing on the playground. One of those shots that gives me assurance and assuages my working mom guilt...when I'm not around, my children are loved and taken care of and having a grand time.

Thank you, Scott, for taking this photo. It's one of my very favorites ever.

Emily works in the after-school program, and we quickly adopted her into our family. She is our go-to babysitter, and watched the girls two days a week last summer. When she walks in our house, she's like a rock star...children are running to her, yelling for joy and the dog - you should see the dog - the dog goes crazy, whining and jumping and wagging her body. This is a reaction that NO ONE gets except Emily. The Zadra family loves our Emily!!!

Today...

Kennedy, age 4, with JoJo (wearing my dress from when I was little)

I have been dipping my toes in the water that is Facebook. I don't really get it. I now have approximately four, maybe five, friends and I might be at my limit. It's so much to keep up with! Everyone telling me what they are thinking about right now! My home page asking me "what are you thinking about?" and giving me some space to write.
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And then I can post it to all my five friends and they can know what I'm thinking about RIGHT NOW!
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But why would they want to know what I'm doing at all times throughout the day? I'm not sure. I'm giving Facebook a try, but I'm skeptical.
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However, Facebook asked me what I'm thinking about today, and it's not often anyone asks me that, so I stopped to contemplate...what AM I thinking about?
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Well, that's easy. My grandmother. I am so lucky to have had a relationship with my grandmother for so long. She lived to see my children, and to spoil my children. She has loved me and supported me for years and years and years.
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She is not doing well these days. I am thinking about her constantly.
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But probably I won't tell that to Facebook.

A Battle of the Scholastic Type

In this house of all girls and one daddy, besides the occasional (okay, semi-frequent) "battle of wills", we don't have many "battles" going on in our house... We also don't participate in any sports of a competitive nature. This weekend, Kennedy was in a BATTLE of the COMPETITIVE nature!

It was called the Battle of the Books. Eight area schools met on Saturday to test their reading savvy. It was our school's first year to participate.


Each school had two teams of six kids each. Each team of 6 had to read 30 books and be ready to answer questions and accumulate points.

Kennedy had some of her very best friends on her team. Here she is early in the day with India. I say early in the day, because it was early. We had to leave our house at 7:30. On a Saturday, might I add.


Here is a group shot that includes the other team from our school, plus our alternates.


There were 7 rounds of 24 questions, 12 for each team. Each team would sit together in a classroom across from another school's team. A "reader" would ask a question, "In what book did x character do x thing?" and the team would confer with one another and the team captain would answer with the book's title. If the title was correct, they could score 2 more points by giving the author.
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Kennedy was her team's captain.

Now, let me tell you something. There were three or four teams "to be feared". They were strong teams. They had done this before. The members were one or two years older than our girls.

The girls held their own throughout the day. The last three rounds were against three of the hardest teams. They beat the first team. The next team, round 6, was THE toughest team. In fact, this team WON the competition by a landslide. But they didn't take any points from our school! Our girls held their own and TIED the toughest team in this round.

The last round was, again, a strong team. We beat them, too. Of 7 rounds, we won 5, lost 1 and tied 1.

Kennedy's team, and oh are we so proud of them, won THIRD PLACE!!!!! They got a medal and everything. They proved that Hesby is a school to "fear" next year!!

Congratulations to our girls....way to GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whaley!

To celebrate Bampa's and Kennedy's birthdays, we took a whale watching trip one bright sunny morning.



The boat had professional photographers on board. That was handy...see, there I am! I really DO go on vacation with the family!



The bay is always so beautiful, and I never tire of looking at El Arco, the Arch...


And check it out! We saw some whales, too!! We weren't too far from shore and one surfaced and blew from her blow hole.



Sometimes they'd come right up beside us...


Awwww, look at the little baby one!

I learned a little something by looking at this picture closely. It's not so much a blow hole as it is blow holes...two of them it appears. Go figure, I never knew!

And here was a funny thing. We were on a nice WIDE, STURDY boat. Wide and sturdy, while doesn't look so great in a pair of jeans, is mighty comforting while traveling on the ocean looking for gigantic whales.

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Apparently not everyone has comfort, safety and Mimosas on their mind when booking a whale watching tour. There were half a dozen small boats that would zip over to wherever a whale surfaced. It would have been comical if it hadn't been so annoying because they would cause all this commotion getting over to the whales, who would then dive under.

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But, tell me, does THIS look like the boat you'd want to be in five feet from a WHALE?


The guys on board kept calling for "Willy!" (as in Free Willy), but their accents made it sound like "Whaley!" and that's what Brooke thought they were saying.

Looks like Whaley is waving goodbye to us!

This was an awesome experience, our first in all the years we've been going there!

The Wheel in the Sky is turning tonight

My guitar hero is playing in a new Journey tribute band called Lights! Tonight is their first show in Huntington Beach.

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I pulled up their Myspace page. They sure do have a lot of gigs planned which will make him a happy guy (disregarding the lost sleep due to late rehearsals/gigs/preparation which makes him a wee bit of a cranky guy) .

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But he's so hot with the guitar, and he does dishes, so I forgive him the occasional crankiness.

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So, which show are YOU coming to???? Because really, who doesn't like a little Journey?

For friends/family/potential stalkers: I put the link to his band's Myspace page on the right for future reference. Perhaps one of these days he'll have his own Myspace or Facebook page. We are a bit behind the times on that one!

Dear Steve & Tracy

Dear Steve and Tracy,

I do realize that the decision was difficult to make...the one in which you decided to NOT come to Cabo this year.

I recommend that you do not do that again.

For one...we missed you.

For two...we saw whales. That may be old hat to you Alaskans, but it knocked the socks off us Californians. (Or knocked the flip flops off of us...I don't think we actually wore socks all week...)

For three...the children dug a ginormous hole and it was funny. We could have fit either of your children in there, whole.



But we had no toddlers to torture, so Sophie hopped in and became quite the tourist attraction.



Oh, and also...we shared the beach, the pool, our very SIDEWALK to Perlita 9 with the legendary Paul Rogers (Steve, you go ahead and take a minute to explain this to Tracy now). He was staying in Perlita 5, right across the way.

We have no pictures because we California people are ultra sensitive to the famous folk, you know. Okay, that's not really the story. We only THOUGHT it was him for three days, then found out the morning we left that it WAS him, but then we didn't see him after that so we didn't ask him for a picture. Or even take one on the sly, which would have been the more likely scenario. Anywho, turns out he's a family friend of the Canadian family we hang with, so perhaps there will be another chance. :)

But...and this is a big but...the most important reason you should not have skipped Cabo 2009...Brooke is trying to tell you something...LOOK!

DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE???

CAN IT BE???

AFTER ALL THESE YEARS????????????

Oh yeah. There it is. Right near the Hard Rock Cafe on the way to the Super Mercado.

Starbucks. A for real one. The mermaid lady on the circular sign spoke to me...she said, "Where the heck is Tracy?" and I replied, "Alas, she could not come this year", and the mermaid lady said, "Ah, that is a shame, for surely you must miss her and her family."

"Yes", I replied, "we most certainly do."

Twelve

A certain someone is very excited to be twelve.

We started early...the Friday night before her birthday...dinner at Islands and lava cake for dessert (as evidenced by Brooke's black teeth). Speaking of Brooke's teeth, she is missing a few in the front, giving her a bit of a gruesome look paired with the chocolate...

The next day, the actual day, 3-21...two friends were dropped off, and our first stop was Yummy Cupcakes in Burbank, CA. Each child (and one mom and one dad) picked out a cupcake! Oh, and we saw Jay Leno hanging out with his antique car right there on the corner of Hollywood Way and Magnolia Blvd. However, we had a tight schedule, so we didn't stop (because only one of the four kids had even heard of him...)


Next on the agenda...a movie for the big girls. I took them to see Knowing with Nicolas Cage. Gee, I lapsed and didn't check Movie Mom for her review. Guess what. It's freakin' scary. Wouldn't REALLY recommend it for your 12 year-olds. One of the three couldn't hang, so she and I left the movie 40 minutes into it.

I do recommend it for older kids and parents. I want to go back so I can see the end...it was a GOOD movie, just not really for youngish kids. Even those in middle school.
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So, the one who couldn't hang and I had an hour and a half to spare, so we went into Coraline...which was really weird and really not good. Can't say that I'd recommend that one for anyone. Most especially NOT the little kids in the theater...just because it's animated doesn't mean it's for little kids!!
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After the movie, the girls saw a cool chair in Urban Home as we walked back to the car. They HAD to sit in it!!!



It was a Twilight birthday indeed. And guess what came out on DVD right on 3-21?? Yes, indeed, Twilight! I think that Edward is yummy. For a vampire anyway.

Here are our Yummy Cupcake selections looking quite...well...yummy!!!



We went to dinner at Benihana. So yummy. Yummy is the theme for today it seems.

So the girls (minus Brooke) stayed up late watching Twilight. It was a fun, yet low-key, way to turn twelve!

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Happy Birthday dear Kennedy...we love you!