This & That Thursday

Posted on July 23, 2009 by carrie

Let’s dive in, shall we?

Remember last month – our month of “June Gloom?” You couldn’t just tell me to keep my big, complaining mouth shut? Well, it always comes back to bite you, I’m hear to tell you. Because, July? It has been H-O-T. We are on our way to the beach right now. It is usually 15-20 degrees cooler there, so hopefully we can find a little relief there.

Plus. It doesn’t really feel like summer until you spend a whole day in the sun and surf and head home to get the sand out of…well, out of everywhere.

Finally got a few photos from our dive trip up. J. took hundreds, so I just went quickly through the first trip to the Molokini Crater and pulled a few out. I still have all the videos and a few hundred others from the Lanai trip, too. All in good time. You can see the few I weeded out over on Flickr.
Due to the lack of good programming on the TV this summer, we have found a bit relief on the Discovery channel. We have been watching Deadliest Catch for quite some time now, totally hooked, but we just watched The Colony. Have you seen/heard about this show? It is wicked. Check it out if you need a good TV fix. Also…Shark Week starts next week. Sweet…

This heat is messing with my head. Making me tired and unable to think. I’m out of here. Until next week.

This & That Thursday

Posted on July 16, 2009 by carrie

Whew! We have made to Thursday. The weekend is in sight. Here’s the randomness that is rolling around up there:

Swimming is the most amazing invention. I don’t know if it is the exercise or being out in the sun all day, but it makes for two very exhausted girlies. It is 7:20pm, (I’m writing this Wed. evening) and there are – count ‘em – 1, 2, girls ready to pass out, all tucked into their beds for the night. God bless swimming.

After swim lessons today we hit the local high school pool for their open swim with some friends. Emma’s friend Audrey convinced her to go off the high dive. Yes, the HIGH dive. I figured she would get out to the end, turn straight around and crawl back down the ladder. But, nope. She charged right out to the end, didn’t even slow down, and bloop…into the water she went. (By the way, this pic was not the high dive. But it was the second of three pools Em swam in today. And I’m pretty sure this ended as a bit of a belly-flopper!)

Addie is jumping off of the diving board during her swim lessons, too. She cries and says “I don’t want to,” then Miss Carrie convinces her that she needs to try, and she does finally do it. Miss Carrie will ask, “Now wasn’t that fun?” and Addie will just nod and say, “Yes. But how many more do I have to do?” But, I don’t care. She is jumping off into the deep end and getting herself to the side of the pool. That is all I was hoping for. She’ll figure out how fun it is. Eventually.

Due to the hotness and swimming excursions, our Summer School Project ’09 has been a little light for the past week or so. But I’m being surprisingly (for me!) Zen about the whole thing. Normally I’d be freaking that our schedule is being disrupted, things are not happening like they were planned to be. But I’m okay with all of it. We are flying by the seat of our pants and just enjoying summer while we have it.

That said, we are learning about money, saving, and opening new savings accounts in “school” tomorrow. Timely since Mommy is also working on a household budget. Again. This makes what? Budget v.16? Yeah, at least once a year I decide we are going to have a budget. We’ll see. Maybe the 16th time’s a charm?

I do know I’m going to need to pad our grocery budget or Em is going to eat us out of house and home! I thought that only happened with teenage boys? Cripes. The girl is going through a serious growth spurt or something. She is just constantly on the prowl for food. Thankfully she has good eating habits, but she has finished off the baby carrots, bananas, TLC crackers, and almost a gallon of milk. And that is just in the past two days.

And we’ll have another hit to our budget for next month – we are squeezing in one more little trip before Em has to start school. (Have I mentioned lately that she is going to be a FIRST GRADER? No? Well, she will happily tell you about it if you forget to ask.) We are heading to Chicago and Michigan to see friends and family and J’s little bro get married! All very exciting. So friends if you are around in August, let us know and we’ll try to catch up with you all when we are there.

And that is about all I have time and energy for. Apparently the sun and swimming has done Mommy in as well. Have a happy Thursday!

This & That

Posted on June 25, 2009 by carrie

It is Thursday, and you know what that means.

Oh, wait! Maybe you don’t? Maybe you have been living under a rock or haven’t read up on us for the past few weeks?

Yes, it is This & That Thursday, but this week Thursday also means it is (finally) VACATION DAY! We are probably somewhere over the big ‘ol blue Pacific right now on our way to Hawaii. So that means this is the last time you’ll have to hear and read, “we are going on vacation!” Although I guarantee we’ll have a million photos and fun to show you next week.
While I go on vacation, my laptop is also going on a little vacation. I’m dropping it at the Genius Bar for a little checkup. Hopefully they will fix the prblem I seem t be having – the “o” sticks and I have t cnstantly g back and add it in.
So that also means…I will be “unwired” this whole week. I am so looking forward to that, although I’m sure I’ll sneak peeks at J’s laptop and/or my phone. Maybe I’ll even figure out how to do some FB uploads from my phone. Eh….maybe not. But I have set up a few posts to publish while I’m gone, in case you get lonely.
The girls went on a little spa day with Nena this week in preparation for the trip. The ladies at the nail salon adore Em and Addie and always try to outdo each other on their nails. This time the girls got polka-dots on their fingers and some cool Hawaiian flowers on the thumbs. Ad got dragonflies on her toes and Em got ladybugs, of course!

Addie is also fascinated with Hot Wheels right now. She had one car that she got from a birthday party that she has been zooming all over the house, so Daddy got her some new ones and they spent Father’s Day playing cars. I think J. may have preferred that to the usual princess tea parties and Polly Pocket extravaganzas.

Em is still wiggling her teeth and trying to get them all to fall out. Although now her bottom two adult teeth are coming up behind, so we really do need to get her baby teeth out. Not good. So we will be trekking to the dentist the day we get back from vacation. Hopefully she will have wiggled them out by then.
I’m sure there is other stuff to tell you, but right now it is fighting for space in my head with my everything-I-need-to-get-done-to-go-on-vacation list. So instead, I will bid you all ALOHA, and see you next week!

Thursday This & That

Posted on June 4, 2009 by carrie

I’m really digging these “This & That” posts. I realize some of you will actually be reading this on Friday – but I’m sliding it in here, and it is still Thursday on the west coast! And since I feel like we’re traveling at warp-speed, these kind of updates just seem to fit into our life right now.

Speaking of “warp speed,” after many weeks of J. hinting that he would like to see the new Star Trek movie, and many weeks of me slightly resisting (well, maybe more than slightly – I think my response was usually, “I have no desire to see that movie. None.”) I finally gave in last week on our date night, or was it the week before? Whenever…we did actually go see Star Trek. And as we were walking out I asked him, “Are you going to gloat all weekend if I tell you I really liked that movie?” Yes. It was good. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. There I said it.
Woot! Go Lakers…that was a beatin’!
Whoever invented Skinny Cow Ice Cream Sandwiches is a pure genius. And I really should buy some stock in the company as often as I’ve been investing in their product. But, (and I know this is not something you would ever expect to hear from me) skip the chocolate ice cream ones – the vanilla ones are far superior.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to Em’s Jog-a-thon. I went to the Pride Assembly last week and she was the #1 jogger in the entire school, not just the k-garten, the whole school! She was awarded a $100 Tar-zhay gift card. And no, Mommy has not “borrowed” it. Yet. She has purchased a Littlest Pet Shop toy and a new Webkinz and is going to “sell” the rest of the gift card to mom, so she’ll have some spending cash for vacation.(Gah. I had a cute little pic of her getting her award but I was blurring out so many of the little faces and t-shirts, that it isn’t even worth putting the photo up. But trust me, she was so cute and so very proud – as are we!)
Oh yeah – spending money. We are going on vacation! In three weeks we are going to go to Maui for a week. After much deliberation and research we decided that Hawaii is really the best bang for the buck – even though we had to use a lot more of our airline miles to go 4 hours to Hawaii, than it would have been to go a good 8-9 hours to the Caribbean. Don’t ask me. I can’t explain it. I can say that I am thankful for a very smart hubby who figured out how, with AmEx points and airline miles, to get us a very sweet trip, for very, very cheap! And I guess I am thankful (?) that he travels a lot for work which racks those points and miles up!
He is traveling as we speak I write. Four cities in four days. Quite a whirlwind crazy trip for him. Come home soon, please, Daddy.

I had a “horrible Mommy” moment this week when Addikins burned her hand on the stove. Between her cries of anguish and my huge blanket of Mommy guilt, it was a very long night around here on Tuesday. She is fine, in fact the little blisters are nearly gone already today. Whew.

Em was a lovely, lovely swan in the end of year dance recital yesterday. The lighting is horrible in the little studio, and I brought the wrong video camera, so I’m not sure what the video looks like, but I’ll have more on that soon.

We have Em’s musical on Saturday. Dress rehearsal was today. Um. Yeah. It should be very interesting. Let’s just put it that way. I’ll definitely make sure I have the right video camera for that one!
And my sister is coming tomorrow! Today? Well, 12 hours from now she will be touching down in L.A. We are looking forward to a relaxing fun weekend just hanging.
I just pulled the banana bread she requested, out of the oven. It smells so good in our house right now.