365 Day 279

We've reached this beautiful stage where Bug draws pictures and then tells me all about them. What makes it even more magical is when she tells you the same story days later. She knows what she drew!

365 Day 278

Last meet of the year. Probably should have had my camera ready for still photos before he passed me....

365 Day 277

She colored her first picture that filled up the whole page. 

I was so excited I asked her if I could tear it out and keep it.

365 Day 276

She got to have it more or less by accident but she's decided it's now her favorite cereal. "I want my favorite cereal, Mommy. LIFE!"

365 Day 275

Talk about prompt! Baby shower on Saturday and this beautiful thank you card came in the mail today. I was so honored to be a part of her celebration but the thank you card was such a sweet bonus!

365 Day 274

After hosting my sister's baby shower yesterday we left immediately for the Delta to babysit two of our favorite little people for the night and this morning. Bug had more fun than she knew what to do with. So much in fact, that as soon as she finished singing 'Mean' she passed out.

365 Day 273

Bug drew a self portrait. Her long hair. Her smile. Her feet. And, her purple dress. On the top she wrote her name (You 

can see an 'e' and a 'v'). Go baby!

365 Day 272

Mini Jag, Iced Tea, and Water. We had everything we needed for the track meet yesterday!

365 Day 271

Track meet! 

He's our rockstar runner!

Forgetting

Some of my favorite things my little Bug used to say that I'm already forgetting:

minty meal (oatmeal)

I'm mirsty

hungry squirrel (she always said she was a hungry squirrel. I have no idea where it came from)

"airplane poop goes neeeaaaarrrr psshhh!"

Put it in the fridgger

Someday (Mean  by Tayor Swift)

I need walla paper (toilet paper)

Boomer has it, (to rumor has it) What does Boomer have? "A wallet" (It's always been a wallet, again, no idea why)

365 Day 270

The paper straws for the baby shower came in and they look fantastic!  

365 Day 269

Mia Bella, I love you! 

Dark Chocolate and Raspberry Gelato.  

365 Day 268

I'm not sure what these cars were doing on the side of the road (there were 4 of them in all) but no one had emergency lights on or looked crinkled. It sure did slow down traffic a lot.  

365 Day 267

"Any old running shoes" he said. 

"Whatever they have" he said. 

4 pairs later I finally found a pair Cliff is willing to keep so that he can go running with Gator.

At least the shopping is finally done

365 Day 266

Memory on my tongue. High School Colorguard at it's finest.

365 Day 265

I honestly didn't even know what the Endeavor was or that it was flying over my house until I saw a post about it on facebook last night. I considered taking the kids to a good viewing area but knew those places would be crazy crowded. Being that it was supposed to fly over at 9am, we chose to stay home and I was banking on the fact that our house in a flight path.

At 9am I took the kids out into the backyard (several of us still in our jammies) to watch for the 'spaceship'. We had cameras ready and after about 20 minutes we finally gave up. I guessed wrong. 

Just before 10am I saw a post of facebook about Endeavor being in a neighboring town, then I heard the very loud engines. I rushed all the kids outside (we were eating breakfast) in time for us to see it fly right over our house.

This is not my picture. We had put our cameras away when we thought we missed it. I had to steal this photo off the internet but it was just as clear and close to us right over our house. The one time in the history of ever that I was happy to live along the flight path. 

Thank you facebook friends for letting me know about it, and thank you even more for having a picture that I commandeered.

365 Day 264

Pops stopped by yesterday with eggs and some beauties from his garden. Using some of our home raised pig sausage, his veggies (and some from our own garden), and a little parmesan cheese we had a delicious home grown and cooked meal

365 Day 263

She wasn't feeling that great so I put her in my bed to sleep this morning. When did she get so big?

365 Day 262

Why did I let paper and water meet on my glass table? This is after the first few cleanings with many different things. I finally got it clean thanks to help from my facebook friends and family.

365 Day 261

I went to put on my favorite sun glasses (I call 'em my grandma glasses) and I found them in two parts. I'm oddly heartbroken over this.

365 Day 260

Since chilly weather is coming soon it's finally time to pull out my crochet hats again. 

Let's see if I even still remember how to do it!   

365 Day 259

Game night done right. Lots of choices.

365 Day 258

Mommy shared her hot chocolate. A cup bigger than her head didn't discourage her.

365 Day 257

Gator's track meet in Auburn. Beautiful location but quite the awkward race for him. He forgot his running shoes, we showed up 10 minutes late, and his laces came untied in the beginning of the race making him risk tripping for 2/3rds of it. After all that he still beat his last time by 3 minutes! Great job!!!

Look closely you can see his laces flapping behind him!

365 Day 256

Stomach flu took captured our youngest first. After waking up sick (and keeping it all in her 'bucket'), we let her watch a movie in the room with us.

365 Day 255

I know it shouldn't be a big deal but I legally parallel parked in just two attempts. 

A celebration drink is in order!  

365 Day 254

Somebody gets to drink from a real glass today all by herself!

365 Day 253

Gator's Cross Country pictures. He forgot his uniform that day but he's still handsome as ever. 

365 Day 252

Most people would be annoyed by the weeds in their lawn but not me. Bug calls them wishes and one of her favorite things to do is picking them for wishes. She also likes to share her wishes so you can have some too.  

365 Day 251

After growing a full face beard for the last few months it was time for it to come off. At least until the heat is gone. We decided to take pictures when it came off for the fun of it. After the first 'style' our little one wanted in on the picture taking, too. She's glad Daddy's fuzzy is going away.

365 Day 250

Cliff got 2 tickets from a customer for tonight's play off game. We had all the kids but it was a school night. Gator and I got to go out together anyway. It was an awesome game (we won) and Gator got to see the Rivercats steal 1st base. My favorite weird rule in baseball!  

365 Day 249

It's here!!!

It has to be better than 'For One More Day'. Sorry Mitch, but that one sucked!

365 Day 248

Three time zones, 2 cameras, 2 iDevices, 14 States, and countless memories later....

365 Day 247

While killing time in the bookstore at the Texas airport I couldn't resist taking a picture of this recipe. Something tells me if I call chicken yardbird I'd enjoy it more. Also, anything smothered is usually delicious. Texas, I still love you.

365 Day 246

Oh, it was a good week but I'm ready to be home. Texas, you won my heart tonight with your pretty sunset and beautiful city lights. This is the perfect end my part of this adventure!

365 Day 245

After a weird couple days a getaway to Boston was a bonus. My first thought in town (preggo thought) was food and this nut cart was right next to where we got our tram tickets. I was just expecting warm peanuts (like they sell at the markets at home) but here I got Boston Baked Beans, in Boston. So yummy I went back for a second bag!

365 Day 244

I had no idea Niagara Falls was this big!

365 Day 243

After some added stress reaching Niagara Falls was a highlight. Never would've imagined a waterfall to be so pretty at night. Following this, we headed over to Hard Rock Cafe for drinks. Awesome bartender!

Pregnant ladies sitting at the bar are funny. 

365 Day 242

If I eat nothing else this will be enough.

 Though it was good, the chili cheese dog wasn't nearly as delicious as the regular one. For just $2.49 I got a delicious hot dog topped with mustard, relish, freshly chopped onions, sliced red ripe tomatoes, kosher pickle and sport peppers piled onto a perfectly steamed poppy seed bun. Why have I never considered pickle spears and tomatoes before?!  It was enough to make me temporarily forget being out of bread pudding. I almost was a good little pregnant girl and went for a salad instead, boy would that have been one hell of a mistake!

365 Day 241

Oh Nebraska, you stole my heart. And I dream of your bread pudding often. 

Thank you for this beautiful sunset to remember you by. 

365 Day 240

The church in Salt Lake City at Sunset. 

Cross Country Day 1

I'm not sure if I'm really ready for today to begin and yet at the same time I've been ready for months. It's bittersweet knowing that I get to spend a solid week with a genuine best friend and yet at the end of this we'll no longer even be in the same time zone.

I'm afraid of how much I'll miss my kids but since I know I've left them before (with Cliff by my side) I'm sure I'll survive again. I do expect it to be different without Cliff with me though and I've never really left him for this long without easy electronic communication either. Damn me and my lack of data plans....

The day started out almost as early as we planned but there was a small delay after the cat got miserably car sick driving to my house. We loaded up on trash bags and paper towels and crossed our fingers that it wouldn't be a non-stop issue. It's much easier at a house then it is on the side of the road.

The plan was to stop in Reno to visits her family, but the timing was off so it didn't work out. We drove on until we reached Lovelock. The town has it's own catch phrase- Don't let love pass you by- on signs all over the town. Weird.

Standing at the top level of the rest stop.
I wish the sparkle was visible in this picture. 

I didn't see (or wasn't paying attention) a 'welcome to Nevada' sign but when we noticed the Utah sign we just about parked on the freeway (very empty freeway) to take a picture. Hilarious.

All of Nevada was desert and rocks and Utah was no different. When I looked on the map the salt lake flats seemed huge. We stopped at the first rest stop (the better view was on the other side of the freeway) to take pictures before we got sick of the endless white. It was a very simple stop with a 2 story shade structure (nice for pictures of the other side of the road), a foot wash (for what?!), and a broken pet corral (the thought was nice).

Turns out if you stay on I-80 there really isn't that much of the salt flats to see. It was beautiful to see the land sparkle in the sunlight and as we drove down the road you could see random frames still stuck in the ground on the side of the road from where photographers  went for the trendy shots. My favorite part, besides the sparkle, was the warning signs posted every so many miles: "Drowsy Drivers. Next Exit 15 Miles. No Fatigued Driving". It's hard to imagine with such wide open spaces that the death rate is high enough to warrant such a sign.

 When we reached Salt Lake City, Juliana suggested that we go check out the Mormon Temple (yes, we know we never could of gone inside). Neither of us were real set on it and we almost kept driving but I had a headache so we chose to stop, find the temple, and fill up on gas.

Utah is so bleak and desert like to me. Some people may like the look of the rocks but I'm a tree and water girl. I was not a fan. For as ugly as the state was, the Salt Lake City town center was beautiful! Trees, flowers, amazing architecture. I loved it. The whole town was like a giant Mormon square though. Mormon convention centers, Mormon church libraries a block long, Mormon history Museum; and all of the buildings were insanely huge. At the center of all of it was their temple (stunning) surrounded by what appeared to be beautiful gardens and then a large concrete wall. We would of loved to stop and walk around for 15 minutes, but with pets in the car in the unforgiving Utah heat it wasn't an option. We circled the temple and then headed for the gas station.

Turns out the one thing I needed (tylenol) is not sold in Utah. In fact, when I asked if there was another store nearby I could try the two people in the station went on a mini tangent about how terrible Tylenol is, how there is a recall on it because it has so much rat poison in it so all of Utah has removed it from the shelves, and how in my pregnant state I shouldn't be taking it. Advil is safer. Hmmm. Okay crazies, I'll try again in another state.

See the reflection of those pretty blue lights?

Heading up the mountains of Utah was too much for the loaded car to bear and it struggled to make speed. I wasn't sure if I should laugh or cry when an oversized truckers kept passing us easily. When we finally made it down hill there was a little too much celebration in achieving normal California speeds and within only a couple miles of our triumph local highway patrol pulled us over. Somehow when mentioning that it would really suck to get a ticket on the first day of our trip across the country the officer decided to let her go with a written warning. Yes, a paper warning. I didn't even know they did those!

On our last stretch to Wyoming, we passed the cutest little town (it looked like a small Tahoe ski or mining town). The hotel was comfortable enough but after sitting all day we wanted to move a little so we walked across the street for a beer. Turns out Rock Springs closes early and we had to walk back to the other side of the freeway to find an open liquor store (po-dunk gas station). As a bonus, they had milk (pregnant lady loves herself some milk!) and wifi! Who knew? A gas station with wifi.

Are you paying attention Sacramento? If this little town can have it why can't we????

After all that walking Juliana didn't even want a beer anymore, but I enjoyed my milk and the sights of a far off lightning storm as we walked back to the hotel and got a few hours of sleep before heading out in the morning.

365 Day 239

After many days of procrastination, I finally finished packing for my week on the road.

365 Day 238

This is not helping me pack. 

She has no respect for my clean laundry and I have no respect for her choice of beds...

365 Day 237

There's a baby in there! Getting all these extra ultrasounds is kind of fun. I've never seen a baby moving around so much before.

365 Day 236

A piece of my past that is literally 20+ years old and it still looks as great as when I got it. 

What an awesome suprise to bring me!  

Months Behind

It's not so much that I planned to fall behind or that I stopped taking my pictures (entirely) it's more that complications beyond me frustrated me too much. I use Smugmug to store all my photos. I use Google's Picasa program to manage my photos on my computer. Normally, they communicate with each other just fine. All I have to do is touch a button and I can upload how ever many photos from Picasa to Smugmug. Then Picasa went and got an update.

I'm not happy with this update. I understand why they did it, mainly because they used to also run Picnik and they shut that down so they had to remove the Picnik button from Picasa. This would all be fine if this update didn't effect my other endeavors (like smugmug)-which it did!

Yes, Picasa is free and yes, there is still the method of selecting the photo files from my computer and uploading them directly to Smugmugs website so I have no room for complaint. However, it was so convenient and easy before! Now, I have to actually work for it.

Add in that my life has been pretty crazy lately (running kids here, and there, keeping them entertained, etc) and I just lost motivation. I uninstalled and re-installed Picasa and the Smugmug button with no success.

I did find a trick where I uninstall both, find the button file, delete it, and then reinstall everything and I can use Picasa as my uploader no problem. I shared this info with Smugmug (who had been trying to help me for weeks with no success) and they were happy and gave me credit on my account. Have I mentioned before how much I LOVE Smugmug? Then, unfortunately, the trick stopped working after only a few uploads until I repeated the process. Booo!

It's not that I can't blog without pictures, it's just that it's boring to do so (take this post for example). Frustrated or not, I'm working on catching up.
2 months done, 10 days still missing (and counting if I don't pull my camera back out).
I don't expect anyone to catch up on what I've been neglecting, but just saying work has been done.

365 Day 235

Sometimes it's just nice to wrap up in the comfort of your blanket. Even when you're just taking your brothers to school.

365 Day 234

I've got choices for things that actually help my migraines and yet all I am allowed to take is acetaminophen. 

Boooo! I feel like I've been teased.