Mellow Saturday

Today was spent getting things ready for Tim's homecoming tomorrow.  This week I have really missed him being here a lot.  That always happens the second week he is gone and even more so this time because the first week we were so busy on vacation.

Sammy and Jenna had to get up early this morning to go to the JROTC Cadet Olympics.  Before you might think that they were actually competing in something physical, never fear, they were working the snack bar and Jenna had to be there since she is Deputy Brigade Commander (kind of like assistant to the commander) for all of our Northern Nevada schools.

This isn't actually from Starbucks...she had coffee from home before she left

Jenna was sooo excited to wear this hat!  I think all the Brigade Commander-types had to wear them

Sammy thought she looked really cool in the hat!

Duncan went back to sleep on the couch after the girls left

Tara never even woke up

After some coffee for me, I watered my plants.  I typically have a "black" thumb and can't keep anything alive, but for some reason this begonia is thriving and blooming again after winter.  I love the colors of the flowers.

My begonia....a miracle it is alive!

The rest of the day has just been getting a few things done...laundry, picking up, etc.  I am moving kind of slowly today because I am so tired so it hasn't been nearly as productive as I would have hoped.

Even Duncan was just hanging out

Tara had me bring this dollhouse up from the basement.  This has gone through all four girls and held up well.

Tonight I think we will watch Madagascar 2.  We got it from Netflix this week and I want to send it back by Monday.

I really hope I have more energy tomorrow when Tim comes home.  We have church in the morning and I am singing so I have to be there early and Tara has a birthday party to go to tomorrow afternoon.  At some point I will have to pick Tim up, but because it's the military and it's not really a "scheduled" flight,  I'm not sure what time that will be.

New Background

I changed the background of my blog today.  The other one seemed like it was cute, but it was too busy for me.  I'd thought that for a while, but hadn't taken the time to change it.  Maybe it's a sign of me getting old, but it made my eyes tired.  I think I like this one better.  Of course, I may change it to something else tomorrow.  I am a little fickle that way.

Paychecks and Lizards

So today is Friday and so I have to deliver paychecks. Today I had to do payroll as well since I hadn't done it earlier this week.

After I had dropped off paychecks, the girls called me in hysterics. This is why:

I laughed pretty hard after I saw this. The lizard wasn't even as big as my iPod! I took it outside and set it free.

Tonight will be pretty mellow. We are just all hanging out and watching a movie on Disney Channel. The girls have Cadet Olympics for JROTC tomorrow and have to be at the school at 7am. Sammy is doing the flex arm hang and Jenna has to be there since she is the Deputy Brigade Commander (assistant commander for all of the schools in Northern Nevada). They are both helping with the snack bar.

Another Busy Thursday

Thursdays are busy!  I mean a little too busy, actually.  Next year I want to rearrange things because it's hard to breathe on Thursdays this year.  All my activities are great, but just too many in one day! 

I start out going to Bible Study.  We are doing an amazing study (all of our studies are pretty amazing, though) on Matthew.  I forgot to take a picture before so I took one as I was leaving...and, no, I was NOT taking pictures and driving, I stopped the car!

The church front doors

Then I saw this tree and had to get a better picture of it.  I love this time of year when the trees are in full bloom!  It goes too fast and the blooms get blown away.

Okay, I know I can get a better blooming tree picture....later

Then I went home, had a quick lunch and headed to the school to help in Tara's class.  I love her first grade teacher!!!!! She went to Spain over spring break (and took a quick trip to Ireland too) and brought me back this tea towel. 

Isn't this great?  I love the little shamrock and the label even says Ireland!

Right after school, we came home and got ready for swimming lessons.  Tara looked a little better today than Tuesday (after all, that is the goal, to get a little better each time).  Last time I didn't get any backstroke pictures and the only one I got this time is with the kickboard, but it's better than nothing!

I definitely need to get some without the kickboard next time

After swimming it was back up to the church for Worship Team rehearsal.  It wasn't too late, but I stayed and talked a little because Tim wasn't home waiting for me.  We started talking about the Christmas production and what we thought we wanted to do.  I'm not sure I can handle as big a production as last year, but I know the leadership would love us to do that again.  I'd definitely have to delegate more and we would at least know going into it what to expect (plus a lot of our tech stuff is already done).   We'll see what happens.

Wednesday....The View from my Window

Today was spent doing some work phone calls, picking up timecards from last week and school stuff. It was about 80 degrees outside today (my perfect temperature here in our dry climate).  I do have to say, though, when I am stuck inside doing work/school stuff that I can look out my office window and take a big relaxing breath. This is the view from side of my office.  I have a friend from an email loop who I have met in real life that used to live in Colorado and post the most amazing pictures of Pike's Peak from her window.  This isn't Pike's Peak, but it is pretty great!

Mt. Rose from my office window

The view from one of my other windows....downtown.  It does look much better at night, I think.  During the day you kind of just see haze.

My real view most of the time

This is what I am looking at most of the time, though.  I do a lot of work on the computer with all the bookwork and such (although a lot of the time I bring my laptop upstairs to do the work).

Not much else for today.  Tomorrow is Bible Study in the morning, I help in Tara's first grade class in the afternoon, swimming lessons and on to Worship Team rehearsal so it's busy!

Tuesday...errands and such

Tuesday is the day I run errands and since I hadn't shopped last week (being on vacation and all), the troops were complaining that we had "NO FOOD".  Of course, they always think we have no food if there isn't any junk food around and since I avoid buying junk food, that's pretty much all the time.  After I got Tara to school I headed off to my first stop, Blockbuster.

I could go into my long current rant about how I am mad at Blockbuster and their change in the mail-in rental policies (used to be on my plan you could have one from the store and one that had been mailed to you at a time, now it's just one at a time and you alternate between the two), but I won't step on that soapbox.  Just suffice it to say I have switched to Netflix and am enjoying them much more for the same price.   This was our last movie at Blockbuster as I am cancelling our Blockbuster membership.

Next stop...Winco

Next was the grocery store.  Now, I am sure I could run all over town and go to ten different stores to get the lowest prices around and what's on sale, but I have comparison shopped and generally Winco has the lowest prices so this is where I get most of my groceries.  It's not necessarily a fancy store, but they have most of what I need.

Trader Joe's...I love this store

Okay, I do admit to grocery shopping at two other places (besides some in-between shopping at Walmart) and one of them is Trader Joe's.  Our Trader Joe's has TERRIBLE parking and it is almost always crowded, but it is such a fun place and they always have different things that we love to try.

Costco is my last grocery stop

Costco is my last stop of the day.  I mostly go here because milk is $1 or more cheaper per gallon and there are a couple more staples I get there.  I have learned that the key (at least for me) to not overspending there is to go weekly.  That way I don't feel like I HAVE to buy something just because they have it and the lure of new products doesn't appeal to me as much.

After errands, Tara came home from school (Jenna picked her up) and we went to Daisy Scouts at the park.  They were earning a recycling badge so learned all about it and had a recycling relay race.  Of course, after taking all the pictures earlier in the day, I forgot to take pictures there. 

Right after Daisies was swimming lessons (thank goodness Daisies is only once a month) so we headed over to the gym.  Tara has just gotten moved up to the second level in lessons and really likes them.

 

Practicing kicking...keep those legs straight and toes pointed

Waiting her turn...there were only three kids in the class so not much waiting

I didn't get any backstroke pictures, but maybe Thursday when we go.  That's her favorite stroke.

Afterwards we came home and had nachos for dinner and then watched Open Season 2.  I have to take it back tomorrow before I cancel our Blockbuster membership.  Sammy and Jenna had an avocado with their dinner and Tara wanted to plant the seed in water.  Ooooohhhhh.....how I wish we could really grow an avocado tree.  They are my favorite!

Monday.....a lot of catching up to do!

Monday I was still catching up.  It seems like it takes almost as long to catch up from vacation as you were gone so I am hoping to beat the odds by being caught up before the end of the week.

Never ending laundry piles

Laundry, laundry everywhere!  Now, the older girls do their own laundry, but I seem to end up folding it a lot of the time because I find it in the dryer when I am trying to do another load.   

School planning and schoolwork

Sammy and I worked on figuring out what she has to finish to finish this school year.  She may be working some into the summer, I am thinking.

After we got all that done.....I got to go to a wine dinner with my mom and her husband.  He is a food and beverage manager at one of our local casinos and often gets to go to these events.  Usually there is one specific winemaker and they are present at the dinner, tell us about their winery, wines, etc.  For this dinner, they just pulled some of the best wines from their cellar and there were some really good choices.

The Menu

Of course, I got too busy eating the food to take pictures of it and I was a little sad about that afterwards.  It was AMAZING!!!  I especially liked the Lobster BLT.  It was really original.  The really fun thing about these dinners is that the food is almost always dishes I wouldn't make at home.  And don't worry, they don't give you a full glass of each of those wines, just a taste of each with small portion courses (actually, these courses were larger than usual, but the wine was still just a taste).  If they did, I don't think I would remember the end of the dinner!

Home!

We are finally home and as fun as it is to go on a vacation, it always feels nice to come home (although, it would be even better if Tim were already home from Canada, but that won't happen for another week).  We had to leave San Francisco very early in the morning in order to be bck to Reno in time to pick Duncan up from the vet's by noon.  We made it back by 11am with plenty of time to spare.  He was very happy to see me and looked a little thinner.  The vet's office said he hadn't eaten very well while he was there (whenever he is stressed, he doesn't really eat much anyway) until the very end so I came home with over half the food I sent with him.  As soon as we got home, I gave him a meal and he gobbled it right up and then wouldn't let me out of his sight all afternoon. 

You can tell Tara was glad to see Duncan too!

The afternoon was spent unpacking, doing laundry and catching up.  Since I hadn't slept really well the night before (always afraid I won't wake up on time when I have to get up early) I was exhausted and we went to bed early.  Duncan tried to sleep with me all night, but I had to put him back to bed....Tara was also sleeping with me and between the two of them, I wouldn't have had any room in the bed.

Spring Break....San Francisco

For the last portion of our trip, we drove up to San Francisco to stay in Union Square and see Wicked. 

Here we are leaving Monterey

The girls were feeling a little silly at this point as you can tell....

The girls are always so much nicer to each other when we are all together on vacation

We arrived at our room in San Francisco and definitely wished we could spend a little more time there.  It was VERY comfortable.

These beds were sooooo comfortable!

Not a bad view either!

We got there too late to really do any shopping which was sad for all of us.  We got dressed and went to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory at the top of Macy's.  If it would have been a little warmer and not so breezy, we would have eaten outside.

The girls all looked so pretty dressed up for dinner and the play

Sammy had to settle for a raspberry latte at The Cheesecake Factory because we didn't make it for her afternoon Starbuck's "fix"

We didn't get to take any pictures at the show...you can't take any inside and by the time we thought about taking pictures outside, it was too late.  If you get a chance to see this show, it is awesome!  Nothing like the book, really, if you have read it.  The play is much happier and more appropriate for all ages.