We Three Trees

Some of my Christmas Decorations.

Charlie the dancing machine

Chrsitmas Train

Sadie's Reading Teacher invited us on a Christmas Train last weekend so Sadie, Charlie and I met Ann-Marie at the train station in downtown SB and much to my surpirise it was quite the big deal. We took the Amtrack up the Cajon pass and sang Christmas songs, ate cookies and juice, elves made balloon animals for the kids and then a special visit from Santa and Mrs Claus! All of the kids on the train got teddy bears. We had a lot of fun!

Christmas Plays

This may very well be the last year I see Sarah in the traditional class Christmas Play. I don't know how much they do that in High School. Well, she went out with a bang! She had the lead roll in Ms. Ryan's production. Not the best picture but here is Sarah and her buddy Kamren. She had a lot of lines to memorize.

If you put it out there for the world to see...

I loved sending my family highlights out to other family and friends. I enjoy sharing pictures of the kids and all of their goings on. But Terry's CRAZY ex wife keeps visiting the page and harrasing him about it. Why would she even look at it you ask? According to her everytime I update it I send her an email. I think we all know better than that. Do you really think people believe you? Do you believe yourself?

IT HAS BEEN A LONG TIME - GET OVER IT ALREADY!

I will email all my loved ones my new contact info and will communicate with you that way, in a secured enviroment, from now on. Happy blogging - I will still visit!

Allyson

We missed you this weekend!

Brotherly Love

Mission San Juan Capistrano

Sadie's class went on a field trip to the Mission of San Juan Capistrano and it turned out to be a beautiful day. This Mission was founded in 1775 and in 1806 a church on the grounds was completed. It took eight years to build the then largest church in California but in December 1812 an earthquake destroyed the church in addition to killing 40 natives. These pictures show why living in California in is so wonderful. Isn't it beautiful?

A Day out with Thomas

Charlie is such a typical boy. He loves all things that go, planes, cars, trucks and trains so back in August Terry and I bought tickets for A Day Out with Thomas and today was the day! It was a really nice day at the Train Museum in Perris CA. We rode the Thomas train and other trains too. We played with all of the Thomas trains on display and Bob the Builder was there too. It was a lot of fun (even though it was too hot for November).

Sadie's 10th Birthday

Sadie turned 10 on the 5th. My, time flies. We celebrated by having her first sleepover. We had 5 girls come over and spend the night. Thank goodness Sarah was here and helping me. They kept busy by having a scavenger hunt in the back yard, looking for lip glosses, lotions, teen magazines etc. They ran around and played hide & seek against the neighborhood boys. We had a dance contest and watched girlie flicks. I think they only syated up until 2. Not too bad!

Boo!

Rock Out!

James the Train - I did not like this costume, it looks like a mudflap, but that is what he wanted.

Sarah had a dance for the 7/8 grades at school. I set up and brought a lot of the party stuff. I did not hang out in there too long. Her Grandparents crashed it though. I told her that I did not tell them about it. Of course Grandpa wanted to dance with her and her friends - humiliating. She finally kicked him out and gave him a dirty look. I told him Sadie would appreciate him so they went over to her party.

What a cutie witch!

Long Weekend

Here are some pictures from a weekend Terry and I got to steal away from kiddie activities - very rare. My friend Margie got married up in Northern California in an old mining town, Nevada City. Since our 5 year anniversary was the following weekend we decided to go and splurge on each other. We left on Friday and stayed at a B&B (picture posted). That was our first time in a B&B, we were not sure if we would like it but we did. I can't remember the last time I woke up on a Sat. morning and smelled breakfast already cooking. We hit a couple of wineries on Saturday (also new to us) and had a blast. We got a little tipsy and ended up buying a lot of wine. Saturday night was the wedding and it was very nice, Margie looked beautiful. Sunday morning Terry and I got up and drove to San Francisco to watch the Patriots play the 49ers. It was also Steve Young day and they retired his jersey. Very fun. We stayed in a fabulous hotel in downtown SF Sunday night and had dinner at a Tai resturant. Monday we drove home very relaxed and refreshed. It was a great 5 year anniversary!

Updates

We are pretty much settled into our new house. A few odds and ends need to be put into place but everything looks pretty good. I will post pics as soon as I can.

The girls finished their summer by spending a few days with Riss in Oceanside. That was nice for them because we really didn't do much in terms of fun, with the move and all. Charlie and I joined them after a couple of days. We had a good time at the beach.

Sarah started her last year at Our lady of Assumption. I think she has 8th gradeitis. I see her texting and talking and whatever more than anything else lately. Sadie is in 4th grade and she is Vice President of her class, so both girls are in student council. I think she will have a good year with this teacher. I am coaching Sarah's volleyball team again this year. We are 1-1. Sadie is playing tennis again and moved up a level from the Spring season.

Charlie has discovered the computer games. He is obsessed with the Nintendo DS handheld games and the Wii. We literally need to pry them out of his hands. He did take a 4 week swimming class at our association pool once we moved in. He enjoys swimming whenever we can.

Terry and I decided after the last 3 seasons not to pay for the Sunday NFL ticket games. It is expensive and Terry said we watched too much football last year. I miss it b/c Sunday is usually my relaxing day and I like to watch while I am doing laundry. But since our teams are not off to a good start we are less invested now anyway. Terry lost Tom in the first week and Carson is out with his elbow so we have been a little sad. Unfortunately since we live in California the only games we get on network TV are the Raiders. We freakin' hate the Raiders.

This brings me to our latest update. Terry was wondering after Tom's week 1 what it felt like to tear your ACL so he did it in a dirt bike accident a week ago. We went to the Ortho today and he drained 60 cc's of liquid out of his knee. It didn't look good and judging from the noises Terry made I don't think it felt good either. He goes for an MRI next and then we wait and see what those results are before we make any other decisions. Ironically when the Dr. said "torn ACL" he said "he did a Tom Brady". Weird. Maybe that makes me Giselle?

New House

We closed escrow on Friday, we are now the proud owners of 28964 Oakwood Ln. Highland CA 92346. We will begin moving slowly over the course of this week and hopefully wrap it up on Saturday. The new house is VERY similar to the Victorville house but in a very nice neighborhood, down the hill and closer to our work and the girls school. We are going to rent out our Victorville house and I think we got renters yesterday. Cross your fingers for us. Here are a few pictures.

The season is over

Sarah's Softball All Star team lost last night ending a long tough season. After her regular season ends in the first week of June she plays on the All Star team for a chance to win a Championship. Her team practiced or played every day, one of the games lasted 3 1/2 hours. We are talking 12 and 13 year olds here. Her team won their district, won their sectionals but lost in the divionals. That put them in the top 7 teams of Southern California. Not too shabby. Now she can enjoy the rest of her summer.

Happy 3rd B-day Dude

Charlie turned 3 on the 16th. We celebrated by going to Chuck E Cheese - yeah. Here are some pictures of Charlie doing what he loves best, digging in dirt with his trucks.

A new couch

Today I bought a new couch. In fact I was so happy buying my very first new couch that I bought two and two love seats. I have never bought a couch before. I have been married twice, have 3 kids and 2 step-kids, I have bought 3 houses, owned 5 plus cars and have worked full-time for 15 years but never have I owned my own couch. I have sat my sat my butt on my parents couch, James' bachelor couch, my first husband's ex-wife's couch, my parents couch again, a friends old couch but never my own. It feels pretty good, I'm pretty happy.

Accomplishments

Introducing Our Lady of the Assumptions new School President for the 2008/2009 year, fresh from leadership camp AND a new fourth grader who earned the Art, Religion and Athlete award for 3rd grade in addition to having a dentention free year!! I'm so proud :)

We had a good time at King's Island