Sunday, July 31, 2005

My Goodness

I had actually though that last week was supposed to be ho hum, mundane, kinda boring but what do I know. It was crazy per usual lately but it is over. Alana had fun at her girls club camp and doing her play -- she was an indian in Peter Pan.

Tomorrow I put my 13 year old son on a plane to go to London. Am I nuts? For 15 days he will be in London then Edinburgh -- and his parents will be 6000 miles away in CA. I'm a little nervous. I know he will be fine and other than right when he gets there and is very tired, I don't expect he will have any amount of homesickness. I'm also fine that he will be well looked after -- liability insurance at the high school he is doing this with says that he has to be watched constantly and the director has a bunch of cool things up his sleeve to entertain him with. I'm just a bit nervous about the flight. I'm not really scared of flying but I HATE HATE HATE my kids flying without me because I figure if somehting happens, I want to go with them. He did his first solo flight last summer to Harmony College in St. Joseph, MO and that entailed 3 take offs and 3 landings each way and he was fine. He went to SoCal last fall to go to Catalina Island and he was fine. My neighbor just was in Germany and made both trips and was fine. He will be fine. And I will be tracking the flight until it lands. I'll be the most fine when he is in Edinburgh but really, just let the plane get there and I won't say another word.

So, get this (and how lucky is this little 13 year old --- we all can say EXTREMELY LUCKY!), he gets to London Tuesday a.m. and they do a bus tour the rest of the day. Then they have two days of unscheduled time where the director will take him too all the cool stuff in London. They get to see two shows as a group -- We Will Rock You and Mary Poppins. Then the director scored tickes to Billy Elliott The Musical which will be very cool for him. Then they get on a train (and Kings Cross Station -- I need to remind him to find Platform 9 3/4 for me!!!) to go to Edinburgh where their days will be packed with sightseeing along with the 4 performances the group does at the Fringe. Oh, and if you happen to be in Edinburgh, please go see him. And let me know how he is because I won't get to see him until he is back on the 15th.

Anyway, I think he gets how lucky he is. At least a little bit. He's been saying a lot of thank yous today as I get him ready to go. I'm a little teary though. He is my baby. No matter how much he has grown, no matter how much he tells me he is a man now (yeah right) and no matter that he can be away from me for 15 days and totally cool with that. I wouldn't have it any other way but I'm entitled to a bit of boo hoo time. I'll try not to cry when the bus to the airport pulls away tomorrow afternoon -- but no guarantees.

Saturday, July 23, 2005

Done

Done. Finished. Completed. Harry Potter -- Book 6. I feel so behind becasue I didn't get my copy until Monday and then really didn't have time to read it during the week but you can see I managed (thanks to some sleepless nights, grrrrr).

Okay, it has still been a whirlwind around here. I left off mentioning my grandma died. That entailed a roadtrip to LA for last weekend. Now that my brother is here, we decided to caravan down there. Ah, but before we could leave they decided to check out one more house to rent -- even though they had already found one two days earlier and put a deposit down. This one is closer to me, nicer house, cheaper so they went with it. But, it got us started on the road a bit late so we hit LA at 5:00 pm on a Friday.

We were supposed to go to my grandma's house first, to change and clean up but since we were making no progress getting through LA my dad told us to go straight to the cemetary so the 7 of us show up to the viewing looking road ragged, sweaty and generally a mess. But we made it with an hour to spare. It was a bit tough but I said my good-bye with my kids. We all decided grandma looked so much better than she had two weeks earlier. I suppose it is rather sad when you look better dead but she looked so miserable and sunken in when we had seen her before that she now looked peacefully asleep.

The funeral was Saturday at her church and was very nice. She was quite an active woman and very involved in her church and community. Her one daughter gave a moving tribute and there was lots of singing. We went back to the cemetary for the grave side service (really a few words) and my kids actually had fun being a part of a funeral procession -- but lets face it, what's not to like about getting to run red lights with a cop telling you to. Of course my son was competitive even in this and when we were towards the end of the line, he was all about us trying to improve our spot (of course for him being at the front was better!). Grandma is burried right next to grandpa and we all peaked into the hole and said hi to grandpa (their spots will touch). They are in a beautiful spot and together so I guess that is all anyone can ask for.

The rest of the weekend was spent getting a trailer for stuff I was taking back up here, having a great family time at my aunts Saturday evening and then driving back up to San Jose on Sunday where we proved that it IS possible to hit ever rest stop and bathroom along Hwy 5. I'm hear to say that 3 adults and 4 kids on different potty schedules makes for a LONG trip.

The rest of this past week has been fairly unevenful but busy. I'll go into more and post pictures of the princess birthday party later. I'm still in catch up mode (and not being very sucessful).

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Sad

Today my grandma died.

May you be in a happier place, grandma. I love you.

Saturday, July 09, 2005

Canon


Canon
Originally uploaded by Tricia D.
We saw this truck pulling a trailer with two canon's on it when we were driving home from Santa Barbara last weekend. This is a close up -- a bit blurry because son was taking it from the car and through the window. But you get the idea.

I went ahead and posted some more pics at flickr. Mostly my kids at the beach (this is getting a bit old, I'm sure).

Happy weekend -- I MUST get busy. There is still a bunch to do for the party!

Friday, July 08, 2005

Whew...

I'm in manic mode. Who knew I even had manic mode. Usually I'm a slug joking that I'm a lazy person living a busy person's life. Not this week. No laziness allowed.

I just want to get a few things down so I don't forget but it will mostly be a chronological listing of the last weeks activities.

First off, the kids and I drove to Santa Barbara last Friday. It was slow to get out of San Jose but we made up good time once we got south of Salinas. Not much else happened that evening because it was about 8:30 when we arrived.

Saturday we went into LA to see my grandma. That was actually very difficult. I didn't expect to react as strongly as I did. My kids did great though because I fell apart right away, they had a bit of a hard time. But we all went in right away and she definitely recognized us and was very happy to see us. But she could hardly talk and was so thin -- that is why my son had the hardest time with. She was skeletal, so thin you could see her veins and her cheeks were so sunken in. It was very obvious that we were looking at death but Austin still stayed with her initially and told her all about his trip to Scotland that is coming up. He didn't go back in the rest fo the day though and that wasn't a problem. Alana did great too and went in several times with me. The last time Alana and I went back, right before we left, she didn't recognize us. She wanted to know if we were sisters and asked if I was someone else. But we talked to her a bit and then she wanted to touch my hair because it was so thick, like Tricia's. I kept telling her 'grandma, I am Tricia' but I don't think she got it.

So that is it. She's been in and out all week and the hospice nurses don't think it will be too much longer.

We went back to SB that night and went to the art walk and the beach on Sunday. The kids and I came back up this way on Monday and then went to a friend's for fireworks on Monday night.

On Tuesday at 12:30 my brother, his wife and their two girls roll into town. They are moving from outside of Detroit to the bay area. My brother is in the Coast Guard and they will spend the next 4 or 5 years here. Excited doesn't even begin to describe how I feel about this - beyond elated is more accurate. We've not lived in the same area for the past 20 years when he left to go join the service so this will be such a treat. His girls are 7 and almost 9 and they hooked up with my daughter like they were long lost sisters. They were instant friends and so darned cute together. Poor Austin, his cousins started busting on him right away so he mostly rolls his eyes in disgust and wonders how he managed to add additional sisters to his list of woes.

Anyhow, the rest of the week has been a bit of a circus. They've been here every night until tonight, we're watching their parakeets and guinea pigs, and we're trying to not sway them too much on where WE want them to live (next door would be fun!). Brother will be working at SFO so the list of places he can live is pretty big so it makes it a bit tricky to find the right place at the right price with the right schools.

Tomorrow is Alana's birthday party. Her birthday was back in June but who can manage a birthday celebration at the end of school - not I, certainly. So we pushed it off until this weekend with the added benefit that we could invite her cousins and this is working out great. However, on top of all else that is going on, I've been trying to get ready for the party. We're pretty close to being set and I told husband that when he gets home tonight he'd better go into the garage and the back yard to see all the work I've done and that I expect exclamations of appreciation of the work. My SIL helped immensely with the back yard and I was very lucky to have that help.

Oh, and tonight was the little boy across the street's birthday. He is 2 and a love --- we all just adore him so when I found out his mother didn't get him a birthday cake, the kids and I went to Safeway to get him one -- luckily they have premade ones so we picked one out and I asked the bakery guy for Nemo goodies since Baby C likes Nemo a bunch. Bakery guy even wrote Happy Birthday on the cake -- the kids and I were quite pleased with our selves. Baby C loved it and we had a fun mini party for him tonight.

And finally, Austin got his guitar. The deal was, he'd have to earn half of it then we'd front him the money for the other half but he'd have to work off the remaining balance. He's been a chore doing fool and I've had a nice clean house for a month now. This is so win win.

Anyhow, it is a cute little red beginning electric guitar that came with an amp, headphones and a bunch of stuff. His guitar instructor came with us to buy it (thank goodness) and seemed pleased that it was a nice package deal for a beginner and at a nice price. He's been tinkering a bit and I guess I'd better get used to guitar music now. His second lesson will be Wednesday and he's very excited.

I think that is all the news of the week -- I'll get to pictures sometime this weekend. Well, mostly likely on Sunday because tomorrow after Alana's party we go to my friend's 40th Birthday Party.

Happy July 8th!