In the Life of Kara...

Ironic it kind of matches my new mood... I mean, theme.

2010-05-15T08:46:00.000-07:00

*Except that it appears to be broken right now.. I'll try to fix it*

Journey

2010-05-15T08:07:00.000-07:00

I'm on a journey.

Yep.

I was feeling incredibly inspired the night before last.. glad I jotted a few notes down, because now.. I'm not.

I'll get back to this later.

Yum

2010-04-17T08:20:00.001-07:00

My niece cooked eggs for me. /boggle

Giving Up

2010-03-31T11:40:00.000-07:00

Looks like no wall-breaking for me. No more attempts at love letters, either.

I haven't been so physically ill in a looooooong time. I feel like I'm dying.

Please Understand Me

2010-03-29T16:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I get so frustrated because people don't understand me. Sometimes I feel like it's because they don't want to put the effort into it, they don't care to, or I'm just WAY TOO WEIRD for anyone to ever "get" me.

Then I talk to my dear friend. A friend I sometimes think, "Wow, we are sooo alike in some ways". Then other days, I'm totally flummoxed and have no idea what's going on. Today is one of those days that I realize we're very similar. I realize that while I'm thinking said friend is a pain in the butt because of certain qualities, I, too, do the same things. I am frustrated with myself. I need to be more understanding and maybe I shouldn't do those same things to such an extent. I also feel completely helpless because - even though I know what I'd want someone to do for me in the same situation, it's not what I want to do. BUT - I will do my best.

So here I am, blogging about it. LOL! Instead of pestering and being present and wanting to soothe things. Kind of goes against the grain.

I really don't like people. I try and try to like them, but I have such a hard time with it. I don't like being social. I don't like putting myself out there. I don't like feeling used and taken for granted. I don't like being in a position to be hurt. I hate getting close to people. On the one hand, you don't get hurt so much if you don't let them in. On the other hand, how is that LIVING? How can you have the great moments, too? And it's the painful stuff that makes the great stuff that much more special. Right?

I don't know anymore. I have written at least four 'love letters' in so many weeks and have torn them all up, so to speak. I am on edge. I am on an edge. I don't know which way I'm going to fall. Will I give up entirely on the human race or will I throw myself into breaking down my walls?

Maybe I've been studying too much, thinking too much, and my brain is going to explode.

Yeah. That's it.

Support Systems

2010-03-17T23:56:00.000-07:00

I've been struggling to do this thing that I know I've been needing to do for.. hmm.. about 8 years. I've made more progress on it than I have in just as much time, though. Haha. Go me?

No, not really. I am having to relearn things that I have always struggled with and it sucks. It sucks even more when I feel like I have no support. I can't really say that, though, I found support in the least likely (for me) quarter. It was very strange. The one person I wanted support from hasn't really been there for me, so I have been trying to find it in other places. Home is where I found it. As I sat on the kitchen floor, almost crying, I found it.

I have made a ton of progress, but still feel like I'm waaaay out of my league. I feel frustrated, anxious, stressed, and alone. It is SO hard to make myself do these things, do the things that I KNOW I should do.

My brothers have had interesting reactions to it. It's very strange. I guess I will just keep trucking along. I wish, oh how I wish, that I had the one person I want... by my side.

I'm a selfish person.

This one is doing her best to help, though:

Sweet, huh? Yay for blurry phone camera pics...

Love Letters

2010-03-16T01:16:00.000-07:00

I think everyone should get at least one love letter in their lifetime. I have a hard time expressing myself, so I think I suck at writing letters, let alone LOVE letters, but it is definitely something I should do. Even if I don't have a particular person in mind. I need to focus on the good, the positive. Loving someone or some thing helps me to remind myself of the good, the positive. Heh. I should write a love letter to my cat, or my computer. Or Books! :)

I know. I'm weird. This is waaaay off in left field, but I'm having one of those kind of nights.

I have received love letters. I think they are wonderful. Nothing makes someone feel happier than when they feel loved. Actively loved. One of my favorite kind of love letters, though I'm sure they are never meant to be such, is from one guy to another guy about their 'love'. How freaking, amazingly sweet is that? Especially when they don't think/know that there is any way their 'love' will see it, so they seem to be more honest, less "I'm going to flatter you until you swoon" types. Silly? Yes.

I don't even know why I'm thinking about this. Such a random subject. Maybe I need to go see Dear John. I love me some cheese.

I am definitely going to go write a love letter, though. Even if it's never given to anyone or seen by anyone, I want to write it. :)

You should, too!

Ramblings

2010-02-24T11:03:00.000-08:00

Life and I have not been getting along for a while now. I guess that's part of why I stopped posting. I was also feeling like the only people reading my blog were Staci and Heather and I had to have been boring them to tears. I realize now that my blog isn't about that and it doesn't matter who reads it. My blog is for me. I need to find myself again. I lost Kara somewhere.

I'm sitting here on Resulka's bed with a Kairi snuggled up against my lap. She never used to be such a snuggler. She wants more and more to be near me, touching me, but she gets frustrated that I can't stay in one position that long and every little shift upsets her. Then I wonder why I worry about that, she'll get over it and settle down again after a while, right? but I do.

I was looking over my blog and thinking how superficial it all was. For the most part, I was just posting the 'happenings'. I wasn't sharing my thoughts or feelings so much. Just the surface 'junk'. I haven't been creative in my words or in expressing myself. I have censored what I post because of who I thought might be reading. I don't want to bother with that anymore. I guess I got tired of it.

Depression. Over my camera... Resulka had gotten me a GLORIOUS camera for Christmas the year before last. It was the best thing I'd ever had. It was my favorite, my prized possession. I took lots and lots of pictures all the time. I am now amazed that I didn't want to post about it, brag about it, talk about it, show off these intense pictures, etc. Now, it's kind of late in the game for that. I probably won't share them, being that I'm depressed about the whole thing. I was visiting friends I'd never visited before and was really frazzled from driving a long way, on roads I didn't really know, meeting people I didn't really know and had my hands full walking up to their apartment. I was going to go back to the car to get my camera off the front seat. I was dumb, didn't, forgot, I don't know. I was so overwhelmed. I fell asleep there and when I was leaving the next morning, woe to me. I had an awesome surprise. My car had been broken into and my camera stolen, in its case with two lenses, charging things, massive memory card, cleaner supplies, filter, etc. etc. The only thing that was not stolen from the huge kit I had been gifted with was the USB cable, which had been left with the computer, at home. My iPhone cable that I use to play my iPod music on my car stereo was also stolen - not as big of a deal, but still. I have never felt so violated in my life.

That happened in October. I have no back-up camera. I have had endless moments where I would think 'omigosh I need a picture of this' and then remember.. and get insanely depressed. So I have no pictures to post. But I do have lots and lots of thoughts and feelings racing around inside of me.

I have remembered what it's like to be in love. I have had my hopes and dreams dashed apart. I have felt comfort in being surrounded by loved ones. I have felt completely and utterly alone. I have lost a soul dear to my heart. I have been crazed. I have been stupid. I have been destructive. I have hated.

Last week I was able to spend some time with my mom, sister, and sister's family at Disneyland. I never thought anything like that could even be possible, but somehow it was. I got to snuggle my baby nephew a lot. He fell asleep in my arms and I was soooo content to just sit there and watch his little face and touch his tiny fingers. The next two youngsters loved to have Aunt Kara around, too, and wanted to be cuddled and played with and to sit near. I treasure those moments. I hardly noticed the insane crowds that normally would have put me on edge, being so caught up in their wonder and delight.

Sitting in this bedroom is strange and comforting at the same time. There are familiar things, but mostly it is completely different. All of the furniture is new. It doesn't smell the same. I don't feel like I belong here anymore. I don't feel welcome. There is pain where I look. California is supposed to be my happy sunshiny place, but, whether it's the changes and the long time away or the fact that the sun doesn't want to come out much, I'm feeling pretty sad and confused. I hurt. I cry. I cry a lot. I can't remember the last time I cried so much or so openly. I feel like I have changed in many, many ways. I am not so sure I like the ways I have changed. I did what I thought was wanted of me and it appears to have been a grave mistake.

Resulka has been in 'limbo'. Despite my urges to continue doing things as he normally would without me here, he doesn't. I can almost feel the resentment radiating from him at times, even though it is his choice. He hasn't been writing. He hasn't been going for runs, he hasn't been doing his 'normal' things. I have tried to stay out of his way and he grumps at me for not wanting to do things with him. I have tried asking him to do things with me, he grumps at me for taking up his time. I don't know what else to do. He mentions the fact that he'll just go back to 'normal' after I'm gone. That really bothers me.

Uprooted. No place to call home. Unwanted. Unloved. No place to crawl to when down. No place that is 'mine'. No one to turn to. I'm a bad friend. I'm a bad daughter. I'm a bad wife. I'm a bad parent (am I bad because I don't want to be a parent or just bad because I suck at it?). I'm a bad person. I don't blame anyone for not wanting me. Doesn't mean it hurts any less. Why can't I give up?

At least Kairi wants me.

2009-07-02T16:51:00.001-07:00

Twilight - the Movie

2008-11-21T03:09:00.001-08:00

ZOOOOOMG!!

IT WAS SOOO GOOOOOOD!!! AGAIN AGAIN!

So, I went by myself. To the midnight show, of course. Super duper long line because it was like 3 theaters' worth in the one line. I ended up in front of some REALLY obnoxious drunk old ladies. Shrill, in my ear... ugh... BUT! The movie! *gasps* Divine. Nothing is perfect, people. Accept that fact. But this was just.. MMH!! YES!

Bonus of going by yourself? I got the pick of all the solo scattered seats, even getting in line at like 10:40. I didn't have to sit in the front and crane my neck! WHOO!! I sat in the middle of the theater next to some nice girls. Hooray! Midnight shows are the best. Great atmosphere. Its a total party. And the previews for Harry Potter? I got chills.

Err.. must get some sleep so I can finish packing and head out to Utah and then see it again with my mom and sisters and then again with other peeps. o.O

Twilight!!

2008-10-09T10:14:00.001-07:00

Mother's Day Video!

2008-05-30T13:28:00.000-07:00

I just realized there was some stuff on the camera that's been sitting there for a while untouched. SO CUTE! Teh Boy is at the top left and that's only half of the kids. They did one big thing for the AM and PM classes. The other half is out of the view of ze camera. I thought it was kind of strange they were doing Primary songs in school, but whatever. It was adorable. I LOVE these kids!

Who would have thought I'd come to cherish cloudy weather?

2008-05-27T11:36:00.000-07:00

I love: living close to Disney Land. (Being randomly invited by new friends - even better.)

Do not love: not having the camera battery and not seeing any disposable cameras for sale. Not that I remembered to look once the rides started happening.

The end.

3 Christmas vacation pictures!

2008-05-01T20:14:00.001-07:00

Christmas afternoon, after we'd gotten Teh Boy, we checked what Santa brought us. We got some great goodies in our stockings.

Teh Boy couldn't resist helping dad open his stocking presents.

Then we went upstairs to sit with the family and do the rest of the presents. They'd already done all of theirs. Megs gave me Eyeore slippers!! This was my slipper Christmas. Holy cow, I was laughing so hard. Absolutely perfect.

Near the end of the trip, 'Grandma' had a Treasure Hunt for The Boy. She had a map and clues and everything, totally pirate themed. The Treasure Chest (that she made) was hiding in Deadman's Cave (under the table). It was pretty awesome.

Feel like its kind of too late after the fact to go into too many other details from the trip. Meh.

Been busy lately - in a lazy sort of way. Reading lots, though!

Tubular Tuesday

2008-04-01T11:23:00.000-07:00

Just took this picture and thought it was super cute, so I wanted to share. She had been playing with the tulip right in front of her, but she stopped to stare at me when the camera came out.

This week is all 'early' school. Normally I'd get home after WoW was done patching and mess around in there for a while or do other things. Today I was REALLY looking forward to playing some WoW because I get to go on my first raid tonight and wanted to test some things out, but alas. I had an hour to wait for the servers to come back up after getting home from taking the boy to school early... and then they moved it back ANOTHER HOUR!

I'm definitely feeling it. Argh. I'm way too excited about doing a raid. I've been watching a lot of "Enchanted" and playing Cooking Mama 2 on the DS and listening to the Wicked CD. *dances* I'm all sorts of girly lately.

As for the lack of posts.. well all of the above has a LOT to do with it, but I also haven't been feeling up to going through hundreds of Christmas pictures. So I think I'm going to pick like 3 favorites and leave it at that. No one's really interested in seeing it way after the fact anyway. Lawl.

Family Pictures

2008-03-04T16:46:00.000-08:00

...Or attempts rather.

The only day we had 'everyone' together, Teh Boy included, was Christmas Eve-morning. Teh Boy was with his mom and her parents Friday, Saturday, and Sunday until 6 or 7, we got him for that night and a bit of Christmas Eve morning so that my family could have time with him and to get our pictures done. So we spent the morning/early afternoon with my family - first we all went over to the church to take some pictures.

Testing lighting/setting. Really BAD lighting, but I loved what the kids were doing. Can't believe how tall Kaleb is!

Siblings.

I didn't get a very good 'family picture' but our camera wasn't the focus and I have yet to hear from anyone about any other copies. Teh Boy cannot sit still for pictures. He usually throws on this exaggeratedly bored expression and slumps to either side. Someone made him laugh for this one, also an exaggerated expression, but it was funny.

GQ. He couldn't believe I was making him 'pose'. I didn't get the one of Brett, though. DANG IT! I also didn't get one of Alisa and her family or of Joel and Kalinh together. Le sigh.

LOVE it! Makes me laugh every time I look at it. They were 'supposed' to be funny, but Bryce is just out of this world.

Sharla's idea - way too cute.

Ze babeh was crying. So I gots me a separate picture of her laughing later.

All teh boyz.

All teh girlz.

All teh kidz! It always takes my breath away, looking at these pictures.

Taya is the smiliest baby I ever did see. At least when she's comfortable. Lawl.

About midway through we had some lunch. Delicious lasagna, wow. Then we took more pictures. I guess it was at this point I didn't get very many or maybe it was before all the kid pictures, I'm not sure. Dannea and Monica had been in black shirts, too, but they changed! I didn't get any good pictures of them, either. Grrawr.

My family! Bryce was setting the timer, he fits in that open spot... heh. I asked teh hubs to get a picture of us, but he failed, kinda. Family - where are the pictures?!

Then we made gingerbread(or graham cracker, if you will) houses! They were SO stinkin' cute. The battery ran out or I'd have gotten pictures of all the houses. I think someone else did and I shall be sure to get them for scrapbooking ftw. Resulka made a castle. It was amazing.

Then we rushed off to do my family's gift exchange and then the three of us rushed off to do our pre-Christmas eve moment (trying to have traditions, but mostly failing) and then off he went until 1pm on Christmas day. My second Christmas with my 'little family' and no Christmas Eve/Christmas morning fun. Bleh. Dannea and Monica left Christmas day to go back home, so they got very little time with him which totally bums me out, too. They'd only met him the once, at the wedding, and uh, he was way too preoccupied. The huge thing had been to have my entire family all together all at once and it lasted maybe 4 hours. *sniffles* Oh well. At least I got that time.

Next up - Christmas Day-afternoon.

Piano Recital

2008-03-04T15:27:00.001-08:00

Our first vacation activity was driving out to see the kids in their piano recital! I had been broken-hearted because I thought we were to miss it, but luck was with us. We got the time and we arrived in Utah soon enough to go.

Teh Boy had been flown out and then we drove. It was pretty uneventful, which was good. We made excellent time and only got a little scared in a nasty snowy area. I was kind of dumb, left in a short sleeve shirt, capris, and flip-flops. When we stopped for a break in Utah, near the end of the trip, I was DYING - sure I'd kept a hoody available, but uh, bare feet and ankles in teh snow is no fun. My blood must have thinned a lot more than I thought it had.

Dannea and Monica flew out for Christmas and it was also Kaleb's year to spend with us, so we had my ENTIRE family there. It was amazing watching Monica with all the kids. It was her first time meeting them, I think. They loved her!

Braxton playing "Jingle Bells" by Pierpont.

Taylor playing "Up on the Housetop" by Hanby.

Kylie playing "Silent Night" by Gruber.

I'm in there somewhere. Love this picture.

After the beautiful performances, 19 pieces, there were cookies! Frosting and sprinkle topped sugar cookies and ginger snaps, I think. I thought ginger snaps were called such because they 'snap' but these didn't... so I dunno. Either way, they were goooood.

And thus began the cookie eating faces... and pink teeth.

Finger-lickin'-good. And a shiner to boot. Poor girl. She got it from heads-colliding action with Sarah.

Leading up to the Christmas Vacation

2008-03-04T13:51:00.000-08:00

With the advent boxes/calendar type thing, we tried to focus more on moments than candy/treats. The first box had a CD of Christmas music I put together for Teh Boy. His very first, very own, Christmas music. I even decorated a cover. Nerd that I am.

This was one of the first advents. We picked it up on our weekend at Disney Land. There's a big lego store outside the park. This was to the family and is still up on the fridge. Legos ftw.

Some other fun stuff from teh advent boxes: enjoy hot chocolate while reading some favorite Christmas stories by the tree, building a fire (Gabe got to help me light it) and have regular reading time in front of it, make a card to give to someone else (I think I posted about that one before), etc. It was super fun. We had also gotten a gingerbread house kit to do for one of them, but we ran out of time and were SO busy on the trip (we'd taken it along) and did mini gingerbread houses anyway.

I loved watching them do this. Teh Boy got this set from us for his birthday. They're cute when they build together.

Another advent was hanging up the new ornaments.

*purrs* Here's the one, the other was in a picture from my previous 'crafty' post.

We went to the Christmas Boat Parade - 50th annual parade. Pretty sweet. Kind of a cool shot. Teh Boy, Forrest, Audrey, and I are all behind these musicians. We were sitting on the wall with our feet hanging on the side where the sand/water is with the sidewalk to our backs where there are then a bunch of houses (the backs of them) that are HUGELY decorated with tons of people walking around. This band came and stopped right behind us. It was amusing. And loud.

This was one of the last advents before going on teh vacation. We picked this gorgeous ornament up from Disney Land. It has cinnamon smelling potpourri in it. We lucked out with 3 family ornaments this year.

Another strange thing about living in California was that a friend's tree had blossomed as Fall was coming in and they had LEMONS in December. It was craziness. So they shared. They smell really nice when you put them down the disposal. Of course we ate some with sugar. *giggles* I couldn't get any non-blurry shots of his sour faces.

Early December

2008-03-04T13:02:00.000-08:00

I broke down and we got the tree and decorated for Christmas, before my birthday. *gasps* Mostly because we weren't going to have much time after my birthday before we were leaving for Utah. Cornelius disappeared right before we left. We delayed a few hours hoping he'd show up, but he didn't. Sigh.

On the first of December, we went tree shopping. Picked a relatively small one and brought it home. It was actually COLD! Which was kind of cool because it felt like Christmas. I feel like we skipped Winter.. went through Fall and then HI Spring!

Our tiny, crooked tree. Cuuuute! I was good this year - I didn't obsess over placement of ornaments. Much. ;)

He was super excited! I love this picture.

Then along came teh birthday. It was pretty fun. I got this GORGEOUS card... hand-made... by teh hubs man (he has MAD skillz) and then I got all the goodies that went into making it. Woot! I L.O.V.E. Grungeboard.

I also got a sewing machine. Fabulous! (Ignore the painting mess I made on the table from er.. painting the advent boxes) I got cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory!

Then that weekend we had the Christmas party. It was uber. Red lighting makes for strange pictures, though.

We stayed the night in the hotel we had the party at, then hopped, well, walked over to Disney Land the next day. Early morning Disney Land is fun. It was part of our birthday celebrations. Treat to us, etc. etc.

Since when does it rain in Southern California?! AT DISNEY LAND?!? Yeah, we got rained on. Ended up getting ponchos. That was us in front of the big Christmas tree there in my 'husband' blog, in our ponchos. They were funny. I kept them, too, because I'm a dork like that.

Haha, the Buzz Lightyear ride. I kicked his butt. Barely.

The castle was gorgeous.

Stayed in the hotel again and hit the Goofy's Kitchen restaurant on the way out. That was FUN! Alice and Jasmine made me laugh hardcore. Alice kept calling Mike's coffee "dirty tea" and was all sorts of disapproving. Lawl.

Downtime!

2008-02-28T00:02:00.000-08:00

So a few quick notes because I've been remiss. I don't much feel like talking to people these days, let alone keeping up my blog when nothing is really going on.

It was decided it was time t3h boy learned more about chores and dishes happened to be one of them. I don't even want to talk about how many dishes there are in this situation or how the majority of those dishes were made in one night/slash/weekend. IRK. *twitch* IRK ME! He's so studious though, it was -almost- worth it! Responsibility is key.

Next up is scrubbing the oven and refrigerator. Yeah, not him. Most likely me. Irk some more. Thanks.

(I don't know how to set the oven to 'cleaning mode', all of these appliances were brand new when we moved in and were mostly clean until that same night/slash/weekend.) Slashing makes me think of blood. It kind of LOOKS like blood in there... hmm...

And no - he didn't do ALL of those dishes, just cups, plates, and silverware.

On another note: Kairi got 'fixed' today. She's wearing an Elizabethan collar. Looks pretty silly, the poor thing. I have no idea how long she needs to wear it, but I'd assume its for the 10 days until she gets her stitches out. She also has to have meds three times a day. Argh.

Went to Wicked two weekends ago. FABULOUS! To die for. More on that later. Absolutely addicted.

Netflix is pissing me off. Excuse my language. We WERE with Blockbuster because they have that in-store exchange thing going for them. Pretty cool until you realize its just so much cooler to get them in the mail and not bother going to the store. We used the exchange only TWO times in the months we had it. One being while we were in Utah for Christmas and couldn't get the next mailed to us, der.

After hearing about Netflix's instant watch option and slightly lower prices, we totally had to switch. This instant watch thing is AMAZING... except... they keep bringing the DANG SITE DOWN! At the most inconvenient times!! I mean, sure its Wednesday, barely before midnight, I shouldn't care so much (except that I'm extremely restless and was RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF A SERIES!) but when they do it on Fridays? Saturdays? I'm totally frustrated. Its so not fun to watch 2 episodes and get ready for the next, loading, loading, and BAM! "Service temporarily unavailable".

So then I tried to check the help pages to see how often/when/how long they do this. The HELP PAGES are down! But at least -that- message tells me when they'll be back up - 3 HOURS?! What other huge business goes down for that long, that often? (I have to excuse Blizzard because they actually do it when I AM sleeping and its an MMORPG with never ending improvements that you actually notice and I know when its going to happen and plan around it.) I can't seem to find any definitive 'how oftens' when doing a general search on Google, but it seems like there are plenty of other people perturbed about it being inconsistent/inconvenient. I'd like to think they're doing research for when there are the fewest people online, but the weekends? BLAH!!

It probably wouldn't bother me so much if 2 of the times its happened to me wasn't in the middle of made for television movie things that are like 4-6 episodes or whatever. I expect to watch them in one sitting. I'm like that. If it were Grey's Anatomy, The Office, or something along those lines, it wouldn't bother me so much as its something that 'should' take me days anyway.

Yeah, downtime sucks. Why do I have to be such a night person?

So that's my rant. I think I'm done now. I should sleep anyway. Or maybe read. Reading is good.

Good night!

Completed!

2008-01-22T21:50:00.000-08:00

I was going to save this for a later post, but I wanted to do it now, for teh Staci Meister!

Its a bad picture, but the best I have - sorry! I'll be sure to get a better one this year:

My Turn! My Turn!

2008-01-21T02:37:00.000-08:00

I picked up the tag because it definitely looks like fun and I feel like I'm behind because I meant to do it two nights ago and then I didn't and now it seems I'm the last to get it done!

What’s his name? Michael Arthur

How long have you been together? 2 years and 1 month.

How long did you date? Does that include engaged time? *laughs* I have a hard time admitting it was only 6 weeks.

How old is he? 28

Who eats more? He eats more food when we eat, but I think I might eat more often.

Who said "I love you" first? I can't remember. We were both sleep-deprived, talking on the phone late. He thinks he did.

Who is taller? He is.

Who is smarter? Haha, I don't even know how to answer this. I win arguments with logic. Which cracks me up because he was super into debate (he revels in arguments). We correct each other on grammar all the time, spelling, etc. I really don't know. I think it'd be interesting to ask him his take on this. (I think I got 3 points more than he did on some dumb Internet IQ test, bwahaha.)

Who does laundry? I love this one - we do it together. Make a big activity of it. We have to go to our little 'laundry hut' which makes it nearly impossible for me to lug loads and loads of laundry over and get anything else done during a day, so we get some Grey's Anatomy going and switch loads and fold between episodes. Or some other fun thing, like WoW. Heh.

Who does the dishes? I usually do, except for the pots - I avoid them and try to get him to do 'em.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Facing the bed, I’m on the left. We switched shortly after moving in (rearranged the furniture, even). It allows for more spooning action!

Who pays the bills? He does! He has this fabulous spreadsheet budget thing all set up so I like to check it out, keep up with things. He does ask me when he wants to buy the next big toy, though.

Who mows the lawn? We haven't had a lawn. Ever. But I did mow his parents' lawn when they were on vacation.

Who cooks dinner? I do. If I try to leave it up to him, we end up with fast food or some other 'easy' brought home thing. Doesn't work so well when kids are involved. Damn conscience.

Who drives when you are together? He does.

Who is more stubborn? That's a tough one. He is really stubborn when it comes to his way of doing things, his child, etc. But then when it comes to being "dad" he's not. I'm pretty darn stubborn when it comes to most things, but I hate to upset people.

Who kissed who first? He tried to kiss me. I turned my head (really, what guy who really likes you for you kisses you on the first night he meets you?!). Later in the night I was feeling pretty bad about it and wanted him to try again, but he didn't. I totally let him kiss me the next day!

Who asked out who first? He asked me out to an activity with "the group".

Who proposed? He did!

Who has more siblings? Me! I have 4 brothers, 2 sisters. He had 2 brothers and 1 sister. He's the oldest, I'm second to youngest. Very strange trying to understand both sides and seeing what a big difference it makes.

Who wears the pants in the family? Sometimes I like to think I do.

Doing the same - tagging anybody who wants to brag about their husband/boyfriend. It’s a really fun tag! I love reading all the posts that have already been done. Funny to see the similarities and differences. Thanks gals!

I R Crafty.

2008-01-19T20:39:00.000-08:00

Yeah. I got in a funk. When we were out on Black Friday and got to visit these three scrapbook stores (I said 2 in the last post because the other was like.. farther away and more expensive. Mostly about paper and not much else) that are in this city and two nearby cities, I found fun paper. I was looking for some fun paper to do this cool banner idea that I totally stole from Candice.

Well, I made it. It didn't turn out as cool as I thought it would, or maybe I am just too much of a perfectionist, and with the missing instructions on how to do little pinwheel looking things, it just didn't seem 'right'. It was hung up for only a few days anyway. Hopefully next year I can find all the other fun stuff to spruce it up and to come up with something funky to stick between the words. So yeah - I didn't get pictures. Maybe next year.

However! It totally helped me out with the funk. I had also found some fun Fall paper and made myself a Thanksgiving banner. Teh Boy was LOVING that we were getting 'something' up for decorations for the holidays. We'd gotten a wreath, too, that would work for Halloween and Thanksgiving and Resulka randomly brought home a little floral type thing to go with our 'fall' stuff. He is freakin' fabulous.

I used the same ideas of getting random fonts together, cutting the letters out, covering them in glitter, gluing them to patterned paper and then onto cardstock. I also played around with different colored eyelets, green, tan, brown, orange, and red.

I want to get a tiny leaf lookin' garland to string up with it and of course something to go between the words.

During the week after Thanksgiving I had started working on paper mache boxes to make an advent calendar. It took me a while to get enough boxes, and then to paint them, and get enough numbers for them, etc. but holy cow was it fun!

Kaleb's birthday came and I made him a card. He SAYS he loves it and I'll just pretend I believe him.

Resulka helped with the car. *grins*

Then I made a Christmas banner! Yeah, I was going all out. I did that painstaking cutting of individual snowflakes. Gads. Then put the letters over them. I am going to have to find some way of making sturdier snowflakes to put between the words or maybe find something else to do.

Next came a handful of Christmas cards. The pictures turned out HORRIBLY! I got out my old rubber stamps and got me some stamp markers and played around. It was pretty fun.

And last, but not least, I put together ornaments. I'm retarded and forgot to get pictures of all of them. They're clear ball ornaments that I curled paper into, sprinkled in some glitter, some had tiny ribbon bows dropped in as well, and then put monogram rub-ons on. I did 'em for teh grandmas, teh married siblings for their families, and friends. The only ones that had more than 1 rub on were ours which had each of our initials and my sister's. I did a D and an M with a little star/flower shape in between. It was cute. I couldn't really do a last name thing for them. Really frustrated that I didn't get pictures because they were all different!

Anyway, that was all of my crafty fun for the Holidays! I also did lots and lots of scrapbook pages which I may or may not share, I dunno. I'm way too critical of my work.

The rest of November!

2008-01-19T13:36:00.000-08:00

I love progress. Teh Boy had plans to go see his mom in Arizona for Thanksgiving, but she didn't know about it! His grandparents paid for his flight out to Ootah, picked him up and then they drove from Utah to Arizona to surprise her!

Since he was leaving Wednesday and not able to go to his class' big Thanksgiving party, they sent his goodies home with him. They made place mats, Indian costumes, and Pilgrim costumes. So cute!

Here's his Indian vest, headdress, and necklace!

Pilgrim hat and turkey.

I'mma bake you a Turkey, Kara.

So that was the kind of fun we were having!

Then off he goes on his trip. His first time flying by himself. He was nervous, but the grandparents sent a care package to take.

I had been having this insane craving for deviled eggs. I made sure I made some for Thanksgiving. We went ALL OUT!

Check out that hot turkey. I'm not talking about the bird!

Our spread! He got an 18 pound turkey. Should be enough for... 9 people. *rolls eyes* He didn't want to listen to me when I said a 5 pound turkey was more than enough. Oh wells! We had ze turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, olives, green beans, sweet potatoes (Resulka seemed to think they were the same as yams - we'll make sure we get the right ones next year), Resulka's attempt at homemade bread, the eggs of course, rolls, my fabulous butternut squash casserole (OMG YUM!), and I did two homemade pumpkin pies. They were insanely yummy, too. I was feeling pretty good.

We actually did Black Friday. *gasps* It wasn't as bad as it is in Utah or maybe we just live in such a very different place, I don't know. The only place that was terrible was Toys R Us. I got to visit both of my scrapbooking stores, too, AND Michaels! Yes! Not that Michaels has anything, geez. We got almost all of our Christmas shopping done, which was a first! Such procrastinators.

Then Teh Boy came home on Sunday.

The last week of November was spent getting in the spirit of Christmas. Something, I don't normally do... but I started pulling out the decorations, and listening to Christmas music, etc.

Kairi loved the wreath. It was sitting on the floor next to the closet in our room, when I first pulled it out. She wouldn't leave it alone. It was moved into the living room and placed on top of the TV the next day, hoping she'd leave it alone. Oh no.

That's all for November, kind of. I have a separate something I'll be posting.

And for November...

2008-01-18T17:24:00.000-08:00

To start the month off, I want to brag a little about my happiness. Blizzard is my happiness. I have cool Blizzard stuff. I love Blizzard. La la la.

This is a total nerdness show-off. We have uber cool figures, books, teh games, and lots of other fun books. This is all in the big shelf we have sitting in ze kitchen area. I know - strange place, but we're working with a small apartment, here!

And ze loverly thingermajig hanging on the wall over the fireplace. I loooove it! Wish it was the hot chica instead, but whatever.

Then we have Teh Boy's birthday!

Cornelius was being snoopy when I was trying to wrap presents, it was ADORABLE! Really hard going through these pictures, though.. because he's been missing for a month now. I miss him terribly.

Stack O' Presents and a snoopy Kairi.

Another quirky thing we do is decorating presents. I might have blogged about something like this in the past, but whatever. We wrap presents in plain brown paper and then decorate with markers! I love it, we do some funny stuff.

He had 6 presents for being 6 years old (no, not planned and not likely to be an ongoing theme) and each present had a number that was on the package either drawn as a picture or just written on it in addition to the picture.

6 = Everything

I don't know of any kid who needs this much stuff!!

Birthday Waffles for breakfast!

Then against my strong sense of tradition, we did presents from 'everyone else' in the morning so that he could talk to them all throughout the day about it, etc. This year, with the issue of having not so much room, we specifically asked that everyone take it into consideration when sending things... For the most part, they did fabulously!

Then there was this - all from one person. (Except the cars, I got them mixed in on accident, that was from someone else.) ARGH! We still haven't found places for a lot of it. There's the original box sitting on the floor in his room with some stuff he has yet to touch.

Then I set off to making the cake. I was going to be cool like I did Resulka's cake... and do something special. Green and grey frosting? It was too warm to leave the frosting out and the cake wasn't cooled off enough.. so I did the dumb thing and put it in the fridge thinking I'd have time to let it warm up later.

Off we go to his choice of dinner. Surprise surprise! Then we get home and uh.. there's not time to let the frosting thaw so Resulka says "just put it in the microwave for a few seconds". I try to explain that it melts the frosting, not thaw. So he does it and it melts and so the cake looks kind of funny. It stayed together for pictures and initial eating... the next day, it was all pooled around the cake. *laughs*

He was pretty excited about the cake. He didn't know what I was doing until we put it in front of him. I won't tell you what he said to me, though.

After multiple attempts to blow the candles out, Dad had to step in to show him how its done.

Amid lots of laughing, they went out, one by one.

I don't know WHAT this is, but he does it all the time when something is hot, he doesn't want to try it and does, or he doesn't like it. I don't get it. We went out to eat this past week and the food was really hot and he took a big bite instead and slapped his hands to his ears. I asked him why he was doing it and he said "I don't want the steam to get out". I had a hard time not cracking up. Resulka turned red, trying to keep it in.

I won't bore you with all the unwrapping pictures. So this is the after, with the stuff on the table.

The next night, we played his new game we got him based on Horton Hears a Who. It was HILARIOUS!

Then the following weekend he got his cast off. Woot! So he took a long, soaking bath.. and here he is. If you look closely you can see what we've dubbed his "man hair". Totally gross.

We had a lot of issues trying to get him to walk normally. He went to school in his wheelchair while he was building the strength back up, then he was walking to school after a while and it took a long, long time to get him used to walking instead of limping. His leg was fine, but he was in such a habit of hobbling, he kept doing it. I think its mostly gone now, except for when he gets tired.

Back on track with the rest of October

2008-01-10T11:56:00.000-08:00

Alright - I'm sick of it! I have been off, badly.. and the pressure to do great posts and fix all these pictures is too much. I'm picking a very few and getting these tossed out.

I'm really bad about picking just a few, though. I have the urge to share all! I have slowly worked into not feeling like I need to scrapbook every picture ever taken.. I dunno.

This first one was from the day we took the "Star" poster to school. Resulka got to go with us so he brought the camera. I laugh at this picture because Teh Boy became super popular just because he broke his leg. Crazy.

Then there was the Halloween Party at school! I went in to help out with the festivities. Totally fun. The original plan was to have the kids take a field trip (long walk) down to one of the pumpkin patches, but because of the fires and all the smoke, they stayed at school and some other parents went and picked up all the pumpkins, brought them back, and spread them out in the umm.. not sure what the room is called.. I guess its like a multi-purpose room, but its also the entrance to the school. Whatever - strangest school design I have seen, but it works.

There was painting...

Snack time with friends...

...and singing!

That weekend Resulka took teh boy out to get pumpkins for us!

This was my first time carving pumpkins.

We were super lucky to get to go to Resulka's work to do some trick-or-treating. Talk about heaven! *purrs*

Then came the school costume parade. The Kindergarten teachers were tooth fairies! To cute. So all the teachers in each grade dressed up as different themes or whatever. The 6th (?) grade teachers matched Teh Boy! Haha, it was funny. He was "Ray".

Later that day Teh Boy painted his special white pumpkin he'd picked out from the pumpkin patch with his dad. He'd had a choice to paint one and have the other carved (the one from school and the one from his trip over). I ended up doing the carving on his school pumpkin - funny.

First time doing candles in pumpkins, too!

I have never seen pumpkins go bad so fast.. was it the pumpkins we got? California climate? I have no idea! But it was sick. Oooohh.. but I also baked the seeds - that was fun. And actually tasty.

Yay for Meagan

2007-12-03T13:34:00.000-08:00

Some more of those 'missing' pictures and events - while I was gone to my LAN party fun, Meagan was here to take care of Teh Boy. One of the things they did on the weekend was driving down to La Jolla beach. There were tide pools and all sorts of things. I LOVE that Resulka took these amazing shots of cool things. He was missing me and specifically focused on getting artsy shots for me. So cute. They went on a ship, a submarine, and explored the area.

Beach!

2007-12-03T12:34:00.000-08:00

So a couple days after arriving - we went to the beach. Couldn't wait to get back to the ocean. It was a beautiful day, too.

I love the little alleyways and the houses along the beach.

Looking out towards the pier.

Looking out the other way. They had a long thing of rocks jutting out pretty far, it was cool. Not sure what its called.

The cute houses..

The water was REALLY cold, but we got our feet wet anyway.

Then a walk down the rock-way thing, until the spray was getting us too wet to go farther.

It was BEAUTIFUL!

More from the Missing variety

2007-11-30T15:29:00.000-08:00

Three days later almost everything is up and out of the basement and ready to be loaded onto the truck.

The kitties are resting up (Kairi couldn't get enough of the quilt).

Teh Boy's last night in his room.

The next day, we get the truck and someone is a little excited to drive it. I was terrified.

First stop is the storage unit, where the monster of a TV has to be moved as well. I hate that thing.

Meagan - "Hey, uh, you guys need some help?"

Second stop is our 'home' where its loaded up and then we pause for a break. I love these people!

Sweet K, I'm so glad she got to stop by before we left.

My sweet Bretton.

I think Kalinh thought that if she resisted hugging him back long enough, we wouldn't have to go.

After a short nap, we packed the cats up, said good bye to Teh Boy, R's parents, and Betty (wonderful woman for letting us stay there for a while), and left. We thought we'd said good bye to Teh Boy earlier in the day, but they wanted to say see us off.

Me, writing the long on the trip.

"Are you seriously taking pictures of me after a long night of driving, trying to get the cats to go to the bathroom?"

He didn't want to come out again.

She wanted to be done.

Driving through Vegas.

Woot - we arrived! And we have a fireplace - I was excited.. until I realized the temperature pretty much stays the same year round. Hot.

The wall cooler wasn't cutting it in such heat, moving heavy things around, etc.

Trying to be excited about exploring the day after arriving.

At least someone was loving the sun and heat in a box-crowded apartment.

Working on unpacking the day after that.

True to nerd-dom, the computer desks and computers were one of the first things unpacked and set up.

Teh Boy's room. You couldn't move around for all the stuff we had in there, that was just HIS stuff. We combined the two, three, four, .... household's worth of things for one kid. Yikes. We had to move tons of stuff out just to get the bed put together.

Two days after arriving and this was about as organized as we had gotten.

Missing Pictures/Events

2007-11-30T12:27:00.000-08:00

Its totally sad when I realize that I remember events by pictures. I had a feeling that I was missing stuff and I couldn't figure out what happened to all the pictures we'd taken of the apartment as we were moving in and all that and then I found lots of pictures of stuff that had happened that got lost in the jumble.

The day after the party at Bryce and Sharla's Resulka went around with Teh Boy and took pictures of things to help him remember the fun stuff. I don't know whose dog that is... but its a cute picture.

Then he got to hang out with his Grandparent H's for a while. They had a bunch of.. 'stuff' for him.

Four hours of this, with no sunblock, resulted in one of the worst burns he's ever had.

Then over to the Grandparent B's for more fun - they threw us a family get-together farewell.

We made sure the pool was in the shade this time, but shaded pool with sunburn = cold.

About a week later - Um, hooray for me. I guess.

My quilt was close to being done! I had my mom come over like two or three nights before we left to help me finish it. She's fabulous!

The next day Resulka went and reorganized our Storage Unit. I'm almost too embarrassed to post these pictures, showing all of our crap.

Then we went to see Family T!

Meeko hates.

Happy Boy!

And then the camera starts to hate. I'm not sure what happened to it, but it started taking really awful pictures, dark, blurry, etc. THIS is the reason the pictures seemed 'lost'. When we got the new camera, the pictures were being numbered differently.. so they got seriously jumbled.

We played some Wii.

And went outside to watch some random fireworks that were launching at a nearby park or school. Don't ask.

We miss you!

Then the very next day we had a going away party at my sister's house with mah family. Camera was super on the fritz.. Sometimes it took pictures like this...

Sometimes it took pictures like this...

And sometimes it took pictures like this...

Ze twins.

I sat with Ashley, Sarah, Gavin, and Kylie on the floor. They looooves me.

There's more on the way! Whee for uh.. more updating, from before some of the updating.

Fire! Fire! Hehe hehe heh...

2007-11-20T17:58:00.000-08:00

When we were having the big Santa Ana fires here, Resulka thought it'd be cool to drive over and get some pictures. He smelled AWFUL when he got back.

The fires were close enough that we were definitely affected by it... field trip canceled, then school canceled, people being evacuated (not where we were, but it affected Resulka's work), etc. It was kind of scary, it was always darkish, with an orange light.. ash falling down, smoke everywhere. It was hard to breathe, especially walking Teh Boy to school before they shut down for one of the last days.

SO GLAD ITS GONE NOW!

Broken Leg Boy

2007-11-20T16:29:00.001-08:00

Having a little boy with a broken leg was extremely tough, trying, and made me thankful for a lot of things.

Like I mentioned before, he was bed-ridden for the first few days, drugged for the pain, and totally comatose. He doesn't usually take naps, but he took one almost every day for a while. He had to be carried to the bathroom and back, getting his pants down was a trial in itself.. he had to be carried to and from his bedroom as well and lots of other carrying. He HATED to be moved, so he'd tense his whole body which made it harder to carry him - he'd freak out, and try to push away, too.

I don't have a lot of strength in my arms, so they started getting sore fast and it was hard to move him around. His cast was also scraping patches of skin off of my arms. I had to wait on him, get him anything he needed, he couldn't do much of anything for himself anymore, which frustrated both of us. Him, because he wanted to be able to do things for himself, me, because its hard adjusting to having someone other than oneself to take care of, especially when feeling somewhat depressed and lonely.

Once he was in the wheelchair things were a bit better, he could move from room to room, but still needed someone to pick him up to get him on the toilet and off again.. and again, with the removing of teh pants.

His cast was sliced down the front so that it could open a little if he got too swollen and started cutting off circulation. We had to keep an eye on his toes to let us know. Luckily we had no problems with it. His grandparents signed that cast.

He wouldn't eat for the first few days - the medicine made him feel yucky and his spirits were down despite all the gifts, cards, and other things people kept sending him (he's now a celebrity at school), so he lost a little weight.

The weight loss and the swelling going down made his cast really loose on his leg, so they wrapped it closed, kind of, with some red! He got to choose his color this time. He had been so upset that it was blue before. Resulka, myself, and his mom signed his newly wrapped red cast with lots of doodles. She came to visit for a day and a half about a three weeks after our anniversary, when I talked about the poster project. (Again with the ALMOST two week thing, but that happened to fall on Resulka's birthday weekend so we got some time to go out.)

He was finally feeling more comfortable with it and was able to crawl around and do more things for himself. He got to the point he could lift himself from his wheelchair to the toilet, too. That was awesome.

While he was staying at home with limited mobility, I was doing all of his school tutoring each day. It amazed me that we could take up 3 hours a day doing school stuff. In the beginning he didn't want to have anything to do with it because he wasn't at school and I wasn't his teacher, etc. but we worked at it hard until we were in a steady routine and he was doing AWESOME. When he went back to school, he was ahead of his class a little bit which made me feel a little better after thinking I wasn't doing a very good job and was having a really hard time being 24/7 step-mom.

Reading him a book of well wishes from his classmates. There's also two posters on the walls in the living room with tons of cards and notes from family, friends, and classmates taped up all around them. One huge poster from Daycare with everyone's signatures and one from his Class when he returned that said "Welcome Back!" Everyone has been super sweet.

When we went back to get the cast removed, they were saying he was on the border of being okay to go with a walking cast, but Teh Boy was SO uncomfortable, kind of freaking out when people tried to touch his leg, that they put another cast back on him - with his leg straight this time. We asked his class to sign that cast. It was SO cute.

He had way more mobility with the straight cast, but he got used to walking like a gimp.. and now that he has the cast off (new as of Friday), he still walks like that. >.< He's walked part of the way home each day now, which is nice for him, but we have to make sure we're working on building his muscle back up and that he's walking 'right'. He doesn't want to have to concentrate on how he's walking, he just wants to GO. More trials. But that's life, right? I'm just glad I don't have to carry him anymore and that he's back to school. Its amazing how fast kids heal.

First Year Anniversary

2007-11-20T15:58:00.000-08:00

Off went Teh Boy with his Grandma and Grandpa H for the weekend to stay in their hotel. Lots of fun headed his way, including going to the Science Discovery Museum.

September 22nd, we stayed in a super nice hotel room at the Balboa Bay Club & Resort to just veg and relax away from home, computers, laundry, etc.

The most luxurious bed I've ever slept in. The whole experience was way nicer than we ever dreamed it'd be. >.<

Wearing my token Honeymoon shirt.

Can't leave the geek in us behind. We packed up board and card games.

We learned how to play play the World of Warcraft card game - TCG. We got lots of cards in our goody bags from BlizzCon.

Funny story. The cake was still in Utah a few days before our Anniversary, where it had been since the wedding. Resulka's dad passed it off to G'pa H who carried it in a gift bag as carry-on when he flew over. It still tasted REALLY good, surprisingly. I'm again reminded of how the cake person had totally not listened to me when I'd described, and drew out, what I'd wanted on my cake. Pfft. Glad I hadn't noticed until after the wedding - too happy to notice the small stuff that didn't go 'perfectly'.

The room service was amazing. The food tasted good and it was gorgeously set up. Um, didn't get the picture of it until after we'd gobbled it all up. Heh.

He also took me to see The Jane Austen Book Club. Cute movie.

I can't believe its been a YEAR!

Wheelchair?

2007-11-20T14:00:00.000-08:00

Grandma H (Teh Boy's mother's mother) was in town for work and had been planning to have Teh Boy with her that weekend so Resulka and I could celebrate our anniversary. We weren't sure if he'd be able to go. The first few days, he was bed-ridden. He needed to keep his leg elevated to keep the swelling down and because it was more comfortable for him, pain-wise.

But then the wheelchair was delivered and there was no keeping him out of it.

He took to that thing SO fast, it was purely amazing. He was able to wheel himself around and maneuver as if he were born to do it.

And Grandma H arrived and there was no keeping him from going with her - not that we wanted to.

She came by the day before she was originally going to pick him up to see how he was doing with his leg and see if he'd be able to go and if she would be able to manage carrying him to and from the bathroom, etc.

Talking to Grandpa H who was due to arrive the next day.

CRASH! BOOM! BANG! OOF! Ouch...

2007-11-20T13:01:00.000-08:00

Okay... it was more like "flop" and then the crying and wailing. Teh Boy broke his leg!

I don't know how he managed it, but he's keeping in with things happening about every two weeks. Two days into the second full week of school, he fell off a swing while he was in daycare.

I got a call from Resulka, he told me that I might need to walk down to the school to see what was going on, that Teh Boy hurt his leg, but they aren't sure what's wrong with it. Super ambiguous. Then they were on the other line again so he had to hang up with me. I got up, got my keys, purse, etc. and headed out the door. He called again to say that they think the leg might be broken, he fell off a swing, blah blah blah, someone needed to get there. I half jogged, half ran the entire way.

Its REALLY hot in Southern California. I was red-faced and sweating like a pig when I got there. Poor boy started crying harder when he saw me. He was surrounded with three of the staff, helping distract him from the pain, telling him stories, jokes, asking silly questions, giving him water, offering popsicles, and tickling him with a long, pretty feather. He was clutching a little stuffed lion one of them gave him to squeeze. Everything is still vivid. They had an ice pack on his leg and pulled it away to show me this HUGE lump on his shin. Of course it made him cry even harder, to look at it. I was kind of freaked and couldn't do anything but try to comfort him until Resulka could get there with the car. We laughed and talked and kept him occupied. It was rough!

When Resulka got there, they had him drive up to the portable on the blacktop and we moved him to the car amidst more screaming. I can't even imagine what kind of pain he was going through, being moved, etc. I used to think about having kids some day and that I might have to deal with ER runs, broken bones, stitches, etc. but I didn't think that day would come so soon.

We hung out at the Anaheim hospital where the insurance company told us to go. We stayed in the waiting room until they could get us a room. It was a long wait, holy cow. Then it was more waiting when we got in that room. Then more while the doctors came and went without doing anything. It was REALLY frustrating. 4 hours of nothing until they finally told us that our insurance covers EVERYTHING with them, but what we were there for. They FINALLY gave him 2 doses of morphine and told us that they were having an ambulance come to take us to another hospital. Then eventually someone came and actually wrapped the poor kids leg up so it wouldn't jostle so much.

I'm kind of appalled at how the whole thing played out. The doctor who would have been the one to help us, if our insurance had covered him, was kind of rude, people took FOREVER doing things.. and no one was communicating with us. Ugh.

So the poor little one and I got to go in the ambulance while Resulka followed in the car. The drugs were finally kicking in and he was drifting in and out. When we got to the other hospital, we had to do some more waiting until the two specialists could be called in from their homes.. and then the X-rays, etc. etc. and finally got him in a cast, and sent home about midnight. 8 excruciating hours, let me tell you...

Oh, I did.

What a harrowing experience.

Take me out to the ballgame..

2007-11-20T12:49:00.000-08:00

The weekend Teh Boy's mom was here, we got the opportunity to go to an Angels game in Anaheim with the fabulous people Resulka works with. First we stopped at the company area where they had some yummy food and fun people.

Then we hopped in our seats and wondered how long the sun would be glaring in our faces.

Yeah, like that. I love the look on his face.

Precious!

Pretty nice zoom capabilities on that camera.. I think I've seen enough red to last me a lifetime.

First Day of School

2007-11-20T12:24:00.001-08:00

About two weeks after I got back from the LAN party and we started falling into a routine, it was SCHOOL TIME! Teh Boy was starting Kindergarten and boy were we excited! He was starting on a Thursday and his mom flew out the day before to be with him on such a momentous occasion.

She dressed him up in his new clothes that she brought for him, combed his hair, and made sure he was a handsome little devil before we set off.

Leaving our apartment. Its beautiful with walkways through little ponds, waterfalls, and lots of foliage.

Holding on to both of us, he's totally excited.

As much as the walk sometimes kills me, it is a beautiful street to walk along.

I was definitely a bit snap happy with the camera, but I would have kicked myself later if I hadn't taken so many pictures especially since "dad" couldn't be there with us. Someone was not amused. (rolling eyes)

The only smile I could get out of him for the rest of the time. He suddenly became nervous and shy all at once when he saw all the other kids and parents and activity all around.

I think he got the fish face-making from me - I do that a lot.

Leaning into my side...

Leaning into "mom's" side...

There's something about putting a sticker or a name tag on a kid. They can't stop touching it!

There's another little boy who shares his name and they got their name tags mixed up and lots of other things. Hehe, it was kind of amusing even though we thought it would all be worked out when Teh Boy wanted to go by the shorter version and the other wanted to go by the longer version. I guess they figured giving them both the shorter version with their last initial was easier?

And we're off to the classroom! He was looking like Death was on his way.

I still can't get over all the parents who actually went into the classroom. You can kind of see the back of Teh Boy's head.

I love the school. It is pretty close, so we can walk to it. The classrooms all open to the outside and the kids are encouraged to use the outer routes rather than walking around in the building. The Kindergarten classroom is right off of the blacktop and where the kids can get 'hot lunches' when they're in the bigger classes. So the parents have a nice, covered table area to sit and wait for their kids to either go into class or come out. The playground is right there, as well. And right across the blacktop are the portables for the on-site daycare! Fabulous arrangement, I think!

The classroom is also a room inside a room, kind of. The kids put their bags out on the little racks you can see at the bottom of that last picture. Behind that, where I was, there's a cool area for the teachers and parent helpers to get projects put together and that kind of thing, away from the kids, but still be able to see the kids with the big windows. There's also the bathrooms, sinks, and drinking fountains right there. I loves it!

TeamTG LAN Party!

2007-11-20T11:59:00.003-08:00

After the two weeks of adjusting to having Teh Boy 24/7, my sister-in-law came out to help with Teh Boy while I went off to a LAN part for a long weekend in the Bay Area.

There was Wii playing, computer playing, pool playing (of the swimming variety), and lots of other fun stuff. My appearance was supposed to be a surprise for everyone, so I went up a little early and then Mais was supposed to bring my computer, but he forgot to stop by. Silly dude.

Here is Mais having fun with some kind of Guitar Hero game on his computer.

Rockin' out.

Nearest left to the back, across and then to nearest right: Omnirune, Crasty, DeathMage's friend, DeathMage, DeathMage's friend, BT14, Steef, and Mais. Teh yummy food.

Adjusting

2007-11-20T11:42:00.000-08:00

So we had about two weeks to move in and get settled and then Resulka's parents showed up with Teh Boy and spent a weekend with us. Then we had two weeks to get used to having Teh Boy 24/7.

One of the things to help us all adjust to being away from family was to get Teh Boy's mom a web cam, ourselves a web cam, and talk Resulka's and Teh Boy's mother's parents to get one as well.

I love the idea because he always gets distracted by whatever he's looking at when he's on the phone and forgets to keep talking to whomever he was talking to, so this way he can see who he's talking to (which is also good when you miss someone) and he gets to show them the things he's been doing or fun new toys, etc. (The mic on the web cam wasn't working, so he had to wear the headset and can't NOT play with the mic. Too funny.

And here's one of the many fun things you can do with all those boxes you accumulated for your movie:

Make the "Simpson's TV" and put on a dino show!

SeaWorld

2007-11-18T21:10:00.000-08:00

The second part of Resulka's parents' trip. Still in 'highlight' mode so you aren't going to get as many pictures (probably a good thing).

The first thing we saw driving down to San Diego. SO pretty.

We fed teh dolphins.

They were cooooool. First time I've seen dolphins.

Trying to pet bat rays.

Checking out the starfish...

The Shamu show was a total letdown, but cool for photos.

Manatees are perdy.

Starting to get bored...

Dad, teach me. I want to be a marine biologist!

Then we went out to eat this FABULOUS food. I crave.

Wild Animal Park!

2007-11-14T16:02:00.001-08:00

Because Blizzcon and Resulka's parents were coming in on the same weekend, we got the first night, after Resulka was done with work to go to Blizzcon and then get home to greet them, then again in the morning for a bit, to be picked up for teh fun with teh family.

Teh Boy decided he wanted to go to the Wild Animal Park AND Seaworld!

First up - Wild Animal Park.

They picked us up from Blizzcon and we took off for San Diego, kinda. Here's Resulka's dad, doing what he does best. Drive, tote, and pay. Just kidding! That's what they always tease him about, that's his job, no thinking.

He must be excited.

Cool banners in the entrance area.

Spiffy bird in the bird enclosure thingy (similar to the butterfly house, when they had it at Hogle Zoo, only outside with mesh).

We grabbed a bite to eat and hurried down to the tram ride we got. I think it was something like the African Safari Ride or something. I can check later. These dudes are cool - they sleep in a circle with all of them pointing outwards, something like "alert circle" or whatever. Fabulous idea. Lesson learned about doing these things too long after it happened - forget details!

Here are some ostrich eggs with an almost extinct White Rhino in the background.

The happy lions! I have never seen such energetic lions in my life. It was amazing what this place had done for the animals. There was the male and two females. They have babehs, but they were in the 'back' wherever that was.

He was a big boy. Heeeeere kitty kitty kitty.

Sometimes I kick myself for letting Resulka have the camera.. I wanted to get a picture of the boy on top of this big rhino, but um.. it didn't happen. I don't know why..

BlizzCon!

2007-11-14T14:48:00.000-08:00

Resulka surprised me with tickets to Blizzcon! Talk about excitment! It landed on the same weekend Teh Boy was coming with his grandparents, though.

Warning - some of these pictures may not be appropriate for children. Parental discretion advised.

The sight that greeted us. That was when the butterflies started.

I LOVED all the artwork. This is my favorite.
Hawt stuff Illidan.

Full sized!

And to start off teh figures. I want want want!

Undead Warlock and Dwarf Warrior. Odd combo.

Blood Elf Rogue (I so wish we'd gotten a better picture of her. She's got a scratch on her leg and stuff) and an Orc Shaman.

Draenai Paladin.

I'm guessing its a troll priest and um, I still can't figure out what that gnome is. I would guess a warrior, but I guess I need to get some clarification.

I would guess the guy on the left is a Human something or other, I have my guesses, but I can't say for sure. The guy on the right would be Malfurion! Night Elf Druid.

Super cool logo sign, looked awesome in the dark.

This is where they did all the uber stuff, like announce the upcoming expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. SUPER EXCITED! Loved the little video they did. They also talked about a movie they want to do, World of Warcraft style. *purrs* There were other things that we weren't able to make.

TONS of people on TONS of computers, playing the expansion. Hawt stuff. Lines were forever long. They also had tables set up for people to play the TCG, card game, and Starcraft II, and then an area of pro gamers that you could watch play.

They also had tournaments going on. These two guys were crazy to watch. I think the one on the right won the whole thing. I loved watching the PVP 2vs2 teams, too. Made us make a warlock/paladin duo when we realized both teams were these same duos. They're only in their early 20ies right now. Hah.

I'm starting to wonder if we have pictures missing someone. I'm sure we got more than these two in costume. There's also some pictures from the move that I can't find. I'm not sure what she was supposed to be, but it was super creative.

Check out those eyes! I want!

Warlock guy - he even had a glowy ball that he held.

I laughed SO HARD! Bucking Eleck.

Hottie hottie boombalottie. Whatever that was. He's so HAWT in front of the building! Thanks for the fun, hun!

More and more catching up

2007-11-14T12:51:00.000-08:00

Going to try to just do highlights so I can quickly get through all this. Lol, that's a laugh. I really have been a huge slacker when it comes to keeping on top of blogging, reading and posting. Bah.
Taylor, Braxton, and Kylie had their piano recital not long before we were due to leave Utah, so we took lots of pictures of everyone. They eached played solos and duets (some with the teacher). Super cute.

My cheesers.

Yummy food. Yummy girls.

Cute brothers.

Sharla is a natural. I miss her dearly.

Someone got braces!

This picture makes me melt.

And I'm off to pick up teh boy from school! More later.

Happy Halloween!

2007-10-31T18:53:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween!

I get to stay home for trick-or-treaters that never show. This is fun... BUT - I did get to spend all day with Teh Boy. I went to school with him to volunteer my help for the big party. It was a hoot. Those kids are adorable.

Pictures later. Camera is currently out trick-or-treating. It better bring me something good.

The cake is a lie!

2007-10-23T09:10:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was teh hub's birthday! Yay!
This was my attempt at making TEH PORTAL CAKE! The cake is a lie.

First time doing german chocolate cake, first time doing a round cake. First time doing the layering thing. Oh yeah, lots of firsts.

I also made him a Shepherd's Pie that turned out quite lovely, with buffalo meat, ftw.

Holy cow, was I tired at the end of the night.

You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

Because I can...

2007-10-21T21:18:00.001-07:00

I got kind of bored of playing catch-up and I kinda stopped trying. Hah!

This little piece of fun made me want to make a quick post - because I can.
In Teh Boy's class (yay, he's started school, but man, there's a whole lot to tell) they do "Star of the Week" for each kid. They make a big poster with information stars and pictures, etc. and then show it to their class and tell a little about themselves. We've reached TB's week at last and boy are we excited!

Too stinkin' cute. We were lucky to have teh mommy come visit and she helped him get started, picking out all the pictures, filling out the stars, and doodling. After she left we got the rest of the supplies needed and put it all together. I think it turned out okay.

He's really nervous about sharing it with everyone, but I think he'll be fabulous. Its also his first day back. More on that later.

Independence Day

2007-08-27T13:24:00.000-07:00

Fourth of July, woot. I am really behind.

Last year, Resulka and I had July 4th together. We went to visit my family for a while, in Ogden, for the eating of the foods, then journeyed back homeward to see the fireworks at Layton Park. Going to the park was a first for me. I didn't really know what to expect, but we took a blanket and laid out on the grass. We had a good view of the fireworks and really enjoyed ourselves.

This year, we spent the day with Resulka's family, eating of the good foods. His dad does the best steaks! And his mom made this fabulous sherbet drink. Oh, how I love.

I hate driving. I was not amused. And yes, we're wearing matching shirts.

I was a cranky butt.

And he tried desperately to make me laugh.

There is no waiting for the pool to fill.

MUST GET IN NOW!!

Grandpa decided to join in. It was one of the funniest things I'd seen in a long time.

I was afeared for his life at times.

Once the lips started turning blue and there was shivering to be had, the splashing ceased and the womenfolk moved in.

After much talking and pleading, we convinced Resulka's family to join us for fireworks at the park!

Megs and TehBoy watching. He HATED the noise and ended up not really watching. He had his ears plugged and face buried under the blanket. I was then surprised to hear he wanted to see the fireworks at Sea World a month later. Yeah, no.

He tried to be amused. He really did. He's like me - crowds?!

There was dust on the lens or something, I failed to get good pictures of the actual fireworks, but I did get some great footage of the grand finale on my phone.

We came back to let TehBoy play with some sparklers and snaps.

So festive!

He was trying to pop them ON ME!!

This was a random picture a couple days later, when they were playing on the Wii. So cute together.

Utah's Hogle Zoo

2007-08-10T15:12:00.000-07:00

One of The Boy's most favorite things in the whole worls is going to the zoo! When he found out there was a WHITE alligator there, he could not WAIT to go.

He's kinda creepy looking.

Baby alligators!

He said it was stinky, but it looks like he's just trying to stick his fingers up his nose.

The Bird show thingy. Teh Boy won a ticket for free ice cream for answering a question.

Teh bird was trained to go to people to take dollar bills and give free tickets.

Pretty owl flying over the crowd. I loved the bright orange eyes.

The regal eagle.

This little guy is my favorite.

Giraffes!

His lips match his shirt!

"We are tough guys!"

The Boy's most 'favoritest' in the whole wide world!

There's a big elephant that kids like to sit on. When they do...

IT SPRAYS!

He got an alligator! Such a happy boy.

It so happened to be my mom's birthday as well, so we stopped by to see her! Whoo.

That's it for June!

Drive-In Movies

2007-08-09T15:36:00.000-07:00

Going to see movies in the drive-in has always been romanticized, but I still love it. Jaime and Aunt Bette asked us to join them to see the new Fantastic Four and Shrek the Third.

They had quite the set up back there.

One of the fun things about Jaime is that he likes to share his favorite floor plans and ideas for his hotels he's going to have.

Huh?

Resulka has really uncanny timing with his picture-taking. I asked Teh Boy for the DS back and he FARTED... right as the picture was taken. Jaime didn't hear it and The Boy is just.. the boy. Haha.

Cutie Patootie!

Only one more post for the rest of June, yay!

Isaac's 100th Day

2007-08-09T14:46:00.000-07:00

A Korean tradition is to celebrate a baby's 100th day!

In his uber cute little traditional outfit.

Mommy Eun and baby Isaac.

The Cake! Eun did an amazing job.

Awkward picture, but its pretty much the only semi-good picture of me here.

Opening presents!

Papa Jon!

Cat toys are not only for cats...

Sweet little family.

Attack of the cat toy. I look amused, right? Hmm, I tried.

I wanna take him home!

The Evil Meeko.

Eun and Jon are just fabulous. I miss them lots. We had good times.

KALEB!!

2007-08-09T13:51:00.000-07:00

Kaybub came to Utah for like 1 week. It made me sad. Since my brother lives an HOUR away from everyone else, well.. we didn't get to see him but the once. So we had a huge partay!

I cannot believe how grown-up he's becoming. He's fantastic! Someone said my eyes were sparkling in this picture. I can't imagine WHY!

One of the twins quizzing "grandma", my mom, about the camera. There's her dad, my only living grandparent.

She's my snuggle bug, following in Kylie's footsteps. So so so cute. I'm sad that I won't be able to see her grow up!

Resulka wouldn't leave Brett alone about hims facial hair. >.<

The Girls! Mom holding baby Taya, and the DS being surrounded once again.

I loves my sister! She's so fun. I admire her immensely.

The discussion of the then-possibility of us moving to California got Grandpa dragging the map out to take a look.

He's wearing a girl's coat, but shhh, don't tell him that.

The Ladies! With Kaybub visiting, we HAD to take a picture of all the kids.

So many, so many! I love this picture because there are SO many things going on. There's The Boy, lookin' bored, Kaleb makin' faces at Resulka, Mom trying to calm Taya down, Chase lookin' super grumpy, and the Megan showing Kylie how the ladies would rouge their cheeks before there was makeup. Haha, so funny!

SAY CHEESE!

Babeh Taya! We made sure to get pictures of her this time.

She's a precious baby. Check out that hair!

I was SO super happy to see Kaleb. I have a strong bond with him, being that I was 8 years old (a milestone for me) when he was born. I remember holding him on my lap on my birthday or maybe the day after, with a pillow under him, to my frustration. He was the sweetest baby and now, here he is - almost 16!! I can't believe it. One time I tried explaining this strong connection to my husband, even though we rarely get to see each other, but he wasn't getting it. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy though when my mom said to me after the visit how amazing it was to see Kaleb practically glued to my side at the party and how affection he is as a teenager.

I looooove my nephew. I can't wait to see him again for Christmas!

Gigi's Dance Recital

2007-08-09T09:55:00.000-07:00

During the weekend that Resulka's brother and co. were visiting, my niece Megan had her dance recital! I didn't even know she was back in dance. She'd had a ballet recital a couple/few years ago and was so scared that she'd said she didn't want to do it anymore. She's just in jazz now and she was the cutest little thing up there.

She really knew her stuff!

Besides being able to watch one of my favorite thing in the whole world, I got to meet my brand new baby niece for the first time. She snuggled me good! Not sure why we didn't get any pictures of her!

I love this picture for some reason - has a cool effect.

My sister is GORGEOUS! Sometimes I'm really jealous.

She's so adorable in her little costume, feathers, and jazz shoes.

How I long for my one year of dancing returned. I should totally scan my dance pictures. My mom found them for me! I thought they were stuck in Ohio with the rest of my dance stuff.

Meagan's Graduation!

2007-08-08T18:12:00.000-07:00

On the first of June, 2007, Meagan graduated from high school!

I miss our school colors!

There she is! Making her appearance.

WHOO! Celebrate! Its official.

Cousin Brooke and her son, Jaime. Jaime plays Clue and Sims.

My favorite picture of Papa~san. He plays a Druid.

This is Resulka's brother's step-daughter. She was playing Nintendogs on my DS, bought another dalmatian and named it Lily. I think she plays a hunter, but I could be wrong.

Resulka's brother Daniel! He plays a druid as well.

She's all grown up!

That is Daniel's wife, the mother of Taylor. She plays a hunter. Meagan plays a Warrior.

A Daddy-Daughter moment.

Megs with Brooke and Jaime.

Cousin Becky! Sister to Brooke. She's going to marry a Dan in a couple of months. They're both super smart, doing research/teaching stuff and getting things published.

My in-law family. They'd sent Resulka and I ahead to reserve a table for us at Olive Garden, so he's missing from the picture.

The right side of the table. You can see Aunt Bette (Brooke and Becky's mother) at the end.

Daniel and Christy.

Taylor was playing Life with me, on her mom's phone. She kicked my butt.

Meagan pointing at me and saying "YOU REMEMBERED!".

One day, escaping the craziness of the family, we went to B&N to get her a couple of books and a coffee for Resulka. We'd seen these cool journals and she really liked 'em, but didn't have enough monies. So I took Resulka back and that's what we got her!

She's so cute. I miss her tons and tons and can't wait for her to come out to see us, soon!

I had to include these two pictures because I get a crack out of Resulka taking pictures of food when we go out to eat.

Bwahaha!

There's the table, at the end.

I'm so proud of her for sticking it through, even when things seemed too much to handle. Rock on Meagan!

La la la.

May Camping

2007-08-08T16:31:00.000-07:00

Just like April, we only got pictures of one event during May and that was CAMPING! We decided to go the weekend before Memorial weekend and Resulka had that Friday off. We got there later in the evening on Thursday, so we set up camp, chilled in front of the fire with s'mores, and went to bed.

We had found a pretty spot in the Uintah Mountains next to a little stream.

I was teh fire tender!

Another shot of our tents. Oooh, teh water supply.

We ended up getting Teh Boy his own little tent. There was a boxed set that was cheaper than it would have been to get the separate pieces. They so happened to have his favorite stuff! There was a tent, a new backpack, sleeping bag, a water bottle, and a compass. He LOVED it.

He wanted alone time, which was his excuse to spend time in his fabulous tent. HAPPY BOY!

Resulka wanted hot water because he can't live without his coffee, so we got a pot and I rigged up this hot rock for it to get to boiling. It got knocked over twice before we successfully reached "hot water". The Boy and I had hot chocolate and I mixed up some yummy oatmeal.

Hmm.. somebody has two extra legs. "Look I'm a reindeer, Dad!"

I added the sticks for antlers.

I love the look on his face.

Teh Boy made it through the night Thursday night in his own tent, but he didn't Friday night (I think it got too cold or something). Resulka has his phone interview with the company he's working for now on Friday and left us for a couple of hours to get back to town for a signal and not have any distractions. The Boy and I had fun gathering sticks and playing around. After Resulka came back, the two of them went "hiking" and brought back big logs.

Mmm, chocolate.

Resulka always gets the odd stuff of me. I was moving that big rock and he was cracking jokes. Grrawr.

There were toasted poptarts in the morning, followed by oatmeal when the water was ready, with hot chocolate. Then for lunch we had hot dogs, the one dinner we had there, the second night, were hobo dinners. I had packaged hamburger in three baggies sitting in garlic bits, and Resulka's marinade stuff he mixed up, then we'd had carrots, potatoes, and onions cut up in other baggies. So I had those put together, wrapped in tin foil, and cooking while Resulka was off doing his interview. Oh, it was goooood. We're definitely going to have to do that again. The desert the second night was s'mores again, but I also did banana boats. Bananas, sliced open on one side, chocolate bits and marshmallows pushed in, closed again with the peel, wrapped in foil and set in the coals. Ooooh, I love 'em!

Hmmm...

"I'm going fishing!"

I am so not attractive when camping, but who is?! Unless you're crazy and go with a camper, geez. Resulka got frustrated with me because I wasn't smiling for the camera when he saw these pictures later.

But I reminded him he ASKED for these silly faces. The Boy and I were having a rest in the tent.

It was extremely cold in the mornings and evenings. A lot of time was spent around the fire.

I got the fire lit TWO times without any matches! So awesome.

Ready to head home on Saturday.

I think we did dang well on our little camping trip as a little family.

Back on Track - Easter!

2007-08-08T14:42:00.001-07:00

The night before Easter, we colored our eggs!

He looks quite happy. Uh huh.

Our BIG-O mess.

For some reason, I can't remember, the dinosaurs HAD to join us.

The first batch.

Ze pretty colors.

I don't know about anyone else, but Resulka's egg kinda looks like a ninja to me!

My lovely little legg, er egg.

The Boy's "twins" he made specially. The favorite color and decorated!

Another of Resulka's eggs. It looks like pants!

I was really jealous when I saw all the color options that are available. When I was a kid, there was red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. This kit had jean blue, turquoise, pink, and some others. They were gorgeous!

TEH BASKET! It had Charlotte's Web with the duck from the movie, a jump rope, a bug catching box stuffed with candy, and some magnifying glasses. Perfect for Spring!

I think his grandma and grandpa gave him a basket the night before as well. The Easter Bunny lost the basket and left a bunch of clues for The Boy to try to find where it was. There was an egg in every spot. What a scatter-brained bunny.

Turns out, the first thing he did when he woke up was open his closet to see what was in there, which is where the basket so happened to be, and proceeded to tear into it, never waking us up. Hahaha. Yeah.

Messiness of the room where he played with his stuff.

Clued into the idea there were eggs to be found.

I have no idea what that is. I -think- its something from the grandparents' basket.

Distraction

2007-07-30T13:46:00.000-07:00

Resulka started his new job today. I'm all sorts of nervous for him. I don't know when to expect him home again and am afraid to even text message him in case he has his phone sounds on and someone's with him.

The Boy should be arriving with Resulka's parents on Friday and they'll be staying with us for the weekend. It should be fun. We are going to go to the San Diego Zoo, which is something I've never done. Pretty cool! Just makes me totally antsy spending money like that.

Kairi's taken to crying loudly when she wants someone to play with her. She LOVES this weird toy and she plays fetch with it. Its kind of funny, but almost getting to be annoying. She wants to play with it ALL the time. I'm thinking of hiding it for a few days.

That's about all I can think of right now. I'm way too distracted. Hehe.

HP

2007-07-27T00:38:00.001-07:00

I just finished reading the last Harry Potter book. Wow...

Home Is Where The Heart Is

2007-07-26T19:08:00.001-07:00

It is definitely starting to look like "home". We've gotten most of the boxes unpacked, now its down to the small stuff. The master bedroom is going slower than the rest of the place, being that the cool air doesn't get back there and it gets way too hot during the middle of the day. We've gone around and started looking at decoration options, too. We're thinking of getting a mantle to go over the fireplace and some kind of art piece (gamer style) to go over that. I think our wedding picture montage will go in the Kitchen, lots of gamer stuff in the living room, and then random stuff we've had in the bedrooms. We definitely need to get three floor lamps - no light in the two bedrooms and the living room.

Here is the floor plan:

I loved the idea of having a sink/mirror outside of the bathroom so that I could do my hair/makeup, you know the girly stuff, without taking up the bathroom. But the odd thing is that it doesn't have a towel rack or hand towel holder. So we're going to get a hand towel holder to go up to the right side of the sink, too.

The patio looks like its open, but its really entirely enclosed with a wooden fence that's taller than me. It also has a bit of grass out there, kind of half cement patio, half grass. The cats LOVE it. Cornelius begs to go out all the time. I'm nervous for when they start trying to jump up to the top of the fence.

The entire closet side of the room is all mirror. Its kind of bizarre, something that's taking getting used to. The Boy's closet is the same way, just not as big.

Having the little bathroom with the two doors like that is weird, too. The one door covers where the towels are which is not a good distance from the shower/bath. That makes it somewhat awkward and again, huuuuge mirror going across the wall where the sink and toilet are. So there's not much in the way of decorating the bathroom other than the shower curtain, towels, and floor mat, etc. My big mirror is going to go opposite the mirror over the sink outside the bathroom. No other place to put it and I love it too much!

It took us about 20 minutes to figure out where we wanted the couch and TV to go today. With the computer desks taking up half the room and the fireplace in the middle of the other side of the room, we had to figure out how to make the room work as a multiple functioning area. I think we did a pretty good job, but there's no way we can move the TV until Resulka's dad gets here.

Speaking of which, The Boy will be staying with us. He's going to go to school here and um, we're still working out all the details with that. His mom is also moving. She's going to Arizona, so she'll be closer than she would have been in Utah. She's planning to come out for his first day of school and other visits. She gave us the bed and dresser she had for him, better quality than what we had. So now he has his bunk bed here and his super nice, big dresser thing that has shelves over it, etc. His Cars TV fits perfectly on it. I'm intimidated by all the boxes that need to be unpacked in his room. Combining his two households is making a huge difference. I can't wait until he gets here, though. I think we'll have lots of fun going through everything and checking out the area.

I have this pretty cloth that was in a basket Eun (Resulka's best friend's wife) did up for us that I put over the taller part of my desk. Its sooo pretty, even Resulka approves. Then I have my little electronic LCD frame that Resulka gave me for Mother's Day hooked up. I want to get pictures of friends to put in it (send them, send them). So that's my desk, feeling all done/stuffed.

It was going to be so cool having hardwood flooring in the kitchen, but it turned out to be fake. *laughs* It was kind of funny, but it still looks nice. Its a darker color with all the cupboards being white. All of the appliances and blinds are brand new. The apartment was remodeled just before we moved in. I think they even put in new fixtures, cupboard handles, etc. in the bathroom and whatnot. It is a pretty nice place. I'm happy with it. I finally have a pantry, too! There's less counter space, but that's all good. It feels nice to have things in their place.

Again, I'm running kind of long and still have lots to do, so that's all for now!

Irvine, California

2007-07-24T12:07:00.000-07:00

Our new home. So, some of what I understand Resulka to be saying is that Irvine is one of the largest "planned" cities. A business owned the area and planned the entire thing with lots of parks, schools, and fun. Irvine is just south of Anaheim (which means we're 20 minutes from Disney Land, onoes), sandwiched between L.A. and San Diego. I think we're also about 20 minutes from the beach, too, but we haven't been down there just yet.

There's a fabulous placed called The Spectrum that's kind of like a huge mall, all outside, with the biggest theater I have ever seen. We went and saw Harry Potter on it, right. BEST of the movies, so far, I think. The artistic side of it was incredible. It inspired me to finally read the 6th book that I'd actually gone to get at the midnight release 2 years ago. Shame on me. I read it all in less than 24 hours, oops, should have been unpacking. I am anxious to read the 7th, now. We had pre-ordered it back in Layton (I wanted to go to the party so bad!), but with the move we were going to be on the road when it came out. GAH! So we missed it, but there are plenty of them out there now and mostly cheaper than even the great deal that B&N had. I also looked into the next two movies. The 6th comes out next year, in following this yearly thing, but AH! they are waiting until 2010 for the 7th! I don't want to wait two whole years! I just hope its because they want to do a REALLY fantastic job with it.

We finished Gray's Anatomy season 2 before we left. I finished my quilt, got my driver's license, and got to see all the fun people I wanted to/could see before leaving. We've been to the new library, hooray for books. Overheard them saying there were over 400 holds for 14 copies of the new HP book. I had to laugh. Hopefully they have a shorter loan time than their normal. They did that for me back in Layton when I got the 6th hold for their 6/6 copies of Jane Green's new book. I could only have it for two weeks instead of 3 or 4, however they do it.

Irvine's schools are in the top 5 of the nation for how awesome they are. We're pretty excited about it. We decided to live in the more expensive area of the city for the schools rather than going out a bit more for something cheaper. They have an in-house child care that is part of the overall Irvine Child Care Program that offers child care at cost. So with The Boy going to half a day of Kindergarten, he'll be staying the other half in their child care. Totally awesome.

The reason we moved here is because Resulka got a job as an IT Project Manager with the coolest game company EVER. They are fantastic, I play/have played most of their games and they just have super neat stuff going on that he gets to be a part of. Totally his dream job. His official start date is Monday. Yay! Its been nice to have this whole week to hang out with each other. Its like a second honeymoon, just with a bit more stress mixed in with moving all of our belongings. Bwahaha.

The Boy is really excited about the San Diego Wild Animal Park, the San Diego Zoo, Disney Land, California Adventures, and so on. Way too much fun, but we're going to have to be careful about what we get to do (season passes will probably be a must) because it is lots more expensive to live out here. The essentials like milk, butter, bread, etc. are more expensive, even. I know that the milk Resulka got was a whole dollar more expensive. Yikes.

This is getting pretty long and I have lots more unpacking to do, but I hope these answered a lot of questions. Thanks for everyone's support! There IS a Michael's pretty close, Staci! WHOO! I must just go get the rest of that set.

Moved!

2007-07-23T15:30:00.000-07:00

We're here! We got the Internet connection all up and running late last night. 3rd night of being here, geez. Anyway, it was fun. We had a huge truck and did lots of loading, driving, unloading, etc.

I am having picture issues. Without PhotoShop I'm at a loss as to making my pictures smaller and I refuse to post more pictures that are GI-NORMOUS!

But Resulka's pretty awesome and has this little photo journal of the move here.

That's all for now, lots of unpacking to be done.

My "journal" from the drive (not going to reword anything to make more sense, you get my jumbled, randomness):

July 19th, 7:00pm
Cornelius the Druggie. His third eyelid half closed and wobbly walking. Showered, finished loading up, attached car, headed out at 7:53.
9:00pm
Almost to Provo. Super Bumpy. Makes me wonder why I'm attempting to write. Feeling a little better, but with Resulka creeping up over 55 repeatedly, its making me nervous. A little relieved about the cats. Cornelius is mostly sleeping. Kairi cried for a while, then started going quiet for periods, then burst out with a loud, single MEOW! I was laughing pretty hard. She's been quiet for a while now. I tried to take pictures of my old apartment and eBay as we went by, but they don't look promising. The sunset is kind of pretty. There are lots of clouds that are giving it a smoky feeling. There's a little bit of pink, but mostly purples and grays.
10:00pm
We've stopped in Payson, the big trucker stop. We were going to top off the gas at Flying J, but their pumps said they didn't take Visa. Resulka got pretty upset until he talked to someone and found out there are separate pumps for "cars" getting diesel fuel that you could use the Visa's at. So now he's pumping away. The cats aren't too interested in eating, drinking, or going to the bathroom. The truck gets pretty hot inside while its running, parked. I'm feeling even better except for a headache coming on. Taking some medicine. I'm glad we're being reimbursed for the move when I see that a quarter tank of diesel just cost us $32.53. Looks like its just about 11 gallons. I didn't write much at the start because Resulka and I were pretty frustrated. His parents decided to see us off and bring The Boy. We didn't really expect that being that we'd already said our goodbyes. We were feeling pretty rushed. The Boy was bouncing all over, being whiny, and was plain upset about seeing us actually leave him instead of the "Bye, see you in two weeks" we'd left it at. My mom had also expressed a wish to see us off, but her phone was off every time I called and when I called the house, Dad said she was grocery shopping. Okay. On top of everything, Resulka's dad is really worried about us making the drive, kept giving Resulka tips, asking if he'd done this or that, and making comments about how worried he was. Its rubbed off on The Boy, so he's even MORE upset by that. Some thoughts from Resulka: "Just that I think its interesting how they market to truckers - hot dogs, big stuff, big drinks, big mugs, 'I'm a trucker, I need the big stuff'". If they were taking care of themselves they wouldn't need to be slamming gallons of soda.
11:00pm
Jerky is good. Just found out we have cruise control.
12:21am
Stopping in Fillmore for gas - pre-pay. Cats still not interested in anything. My hands are getting dry from the crappy soaps. We went past a big rotting corpse and the smell was so bad and lingered so long I almost thought it was kitty puke. But no, so far so good. There was some freaky single lane construction areas, though. Freaked us both out for a bit.
1:00am
I'm writing in the dark. We're on curvy road. Cornelius is being noisy. I have never seen Resulka "munch" so much food so fast.
2:00am
We've stopped at a truck stop to sleep - tried sleeping together on the truck bench, but it wasn't working. Sleeping in the car on the dolly behind.
8:00am Got up, got hot dogs and water. We called Resulka's parents and went through Cedar City.
9:00am Passed Saint George a bit ago. Very dry river beds. Dry, smoky air. My skin is starting to hurt and I'm pretty tired. Feels like we still have ages to get there. Cornelius is surprisingly quiet.
10:00am
Kairi ate some food! Been listening to some World of Warcast podcasts. Their voices hurt my ears. Its super, super hot in Nevada. We're at some tiny gas station right off the Lake Mead exit. Kairi's being noisy lately - its cute. Resulka feels like this morning's just been a blur as opposed to fighting for every mile last night.

The End.

We arrived at the apartment at 6:00pm. I should have kept on the writing, but I got really tired and cranky.

Unpacking

2007-07-13T21:45:00.000-07:00

So Staci had asked for pictures of the place way back when we'd moved, but I guess these were the only ones that had been taken. SO - after we're all packed up, we'll umm... take pictures of the semi-empty place. Its too late to do real ones, already half packed.

I was trying to get the kitchen organized. I took EVERYTHING out of the boxes so I could see what needed to be put away before I started organizing. I'm a freak... and I stepped away for a while to come back and see this:

Its one of those deep corner cupboards. He looks SO content.

Resulka made me pose for this atrocious picture. Look at all that JUNK!

Now that I think about it, this was probably the same day as the picnic.

Picnic time!

2007-07-13T20:32:00.000-07:00

We had some GORGEOUS weather in March. We decided to take a picnic out to the park and have some good sunshine and family time.
He was hilarious to watch eat.
We got Subway Sandwiches and brought our own drinks and some Pringles.

BIG BITE!

The sun was maybe a little too bright. He thought he'd eat laying down.
He always sticks his tongue out when he takes a bite.
Macho-macho maaaan...

Adorable-ness.

Does he look grumpy or is it just me?

I am an -Artiste-!

Eh?
I've never seen a kid drink so much.

Too cool for words.
I'm bored of the playground, the sand, the food, but can we still stay, please?

We can play ball!
Time to go!

In Tribute of Horton

2007-07-13T14:50:00.001-07:00

Early in March, I had put a mouse in the snakes cage and a little while later heard some funny sounds coming from the room. I went back in and both cats were freaking out, trying to get to the snake.

Here are some really, really bad pictures of it. I think I was laughing too hard to take any decent ones.

Cornelius attacking the corner of the cage where the snake was, Kairi sitting on top.

Cornelius was frantically looking for a better way to get to him.

This was the reason they were going wild. I actually watched him creep up on the (dead) mouse and attack.

After our move, Resulka had gotten a new lid for the snake's cage since he had found a way to get out. The new lid didn't fit very well and the snake still got out. He was missing for two weeks with me looking for him every so often before he was found, he'd given up, come out in the open and was VERY ill. He hadn't had any food or water for a while and uh, the cats played with him. He made it another week before passing on.

The Boy was heartbroken.

Poor Horton the Elephant Milk Snake. May he rest in peace.

Silly me.

2007-07-09T14:43:00.000-07:00

I really should post right after things happen instead of months later. Shame, shame, shame on me, as The Boy likes to tell me all the time. I realized that even though I have all these pictures of the fun times, its been long enough that I don't have a whole lot to say about the events even though I know what was going on, if that makes sense. I hope that once I get done with all the "catching up" since January, I'll keep on top of things better. I blame the new computers/OS. Bwahaha. Thanks for reading.

As Promised...

2007-07-09T14:31:00.000-07:00

Since we got Ash a present that they already had, we took her to get something else. We spent more than an hour in Toys R Us, I think, trying to find something that she liked.

She's in a tough stage where she wanted to get something kind of girly, when she's always been a tom boy, but then she also wanted to get something she could share with her baby sister. It was SO dang cute. She's a sweet little red-haired girl.

She ended up picking out this big set of "Home Depot" toys. Hard hat, tool belt with tools, etc. It was the funniest choice, totally took me by surprise.

"I want to help my daddy finish building the playhouse and Sarah can play with me too!"

Game Time

2007-07-09T13:54:00.000-07:00

Poncelet got a new game called "A Game of Thrones". He knew that I'd read the series and was into gaming, so he recruited me to help him learn the game and have enough people to play it. Resulka is kind of reading the series and was mildly interested. It turned out to be pretty fun, though.

So here we all are, getting the game all set up, figuring out the rules. I was busy playing with Kairi's birth mama.

Aren't they so cute?

Ponce going through the rules.

Explaining the pieces...

He got the raven!

Red.

K.

Resulka with a flat/organic pretzel? I can't remember what those things were, exactly, but they were good.

Poncelet, doing what he does best!

And Resulka doing what he does best - taking crazy 'artsy' shots.

So much fun. I'm going to miss these guys.

February Birthdays

2007-07-09T12:19:00.000-07:00

February birthdays, we had 4! There's Kalinh, Ashley, Gavin, and Sarah.

They piled on! That's about half of 'em.

Two birthday girls.

Teh Boy, hiding behind the couch.

The Pretty Cake! Split into four corners.

The other birthday girl!

Cake gathering.

The two youngest go first on their candles!

Mmm, tasty candle.

Can I have some yet?

C'mon guys, you know how much I LOVE my cake!!

Goofy pics of some of the kids.

He's always cheesing it up for the camera.

My even goofier trio.

I can be crazy, I'm just shy at times.

Heh, what?

Three of...

...the cutest...

...girls forever!

We usually do presents youngest to oldest, but G couldn't wait! We got him a light saber!

Open it, open it! They're all in a rage to see what it is. Hehe.

A Puppy! One of her first words was "dog".

Oops, they already had the game. We promised to take her to find something else.

Princess Game! I wanna play now!

Hey, G, its pulling your pants down!

Sleepy girl. We keep her up through naptimes too often, poor thing.

We so weren't focused on the adults at this one. I wish we'd gotten more pictures of everyone. I am probably overdoing the pictures here, but with the move, I'm feeling like I should have as many pictures of the kids as I can. :(

Valentine's Day

2007-07-08T20:40:00.001-07:00

Valentine's Day was fun. It also marked a year from when Resulka proposed. We had The Boy on V-day so we had our special night the night before. Resulka sent me over to Staci's for a few hours to hang out while he was doing what he was doing. We watched a movie and had fun, Resulka took longer than he'd anticipated, but it was well worth it.

This is the sight that greeted me when I walked in the door.

Yummy! He made me this wonderful pasta, fresh noodles, butternut squash, shallots, freshly grated Parmesan, and some spices.

He had lots of candles on the table, made some White Russians, and our presents to each other on the table. He got me tickets to go see Sleeping Beauty! We didn't get ANY pictures from it, dang it!

I took this picture later that night after Resulka was in bed. I left it in the car for him to find on the way to work in the morning. This was a secret present for him for the actual Day. I can't say what it was here. Sorry!

These were the scrapbook pages I made for him about being a great daddy.

The flowers he had especially ordered for me for The Day. He had our florist make them after our wedding flowers. She used larger lilies, the same freesia, the same roses, etc. It was GORGEOUS! When Kathy saw the order, she took it over and made this an incredibly special arrangement.

That night, after dinner, The Boy got his special present. Resulka and I made him a calendar to help him keep track of the days. There are two Godzillas fighting on the front. Took me forever to find a pattern!

Resulka made the cute Heart Elephant for February. We got the idea from something we saw at the grocery store. He loved it. He kept looking at the calendar on the wall to compare the days.

Marking in his birthday on one of the coloring pages (his favorite "Car").

Some other pages were things that he'd been keeping forever that we implemented into "coolness".

I love projects.

I feel silly because I got a lot of Valentine scrapbooking things, but we didn't take any pictures of each other or together! Gasp!

Catching Up Time

2007-07-08T14:36:00.001-07:00

Back at the end of January, we had a celebration of the January birthdays. Mine was supposed to also be celebrated at this time, but I don't think my sister realized that when she got the candles, so I wasn't going to say anything (Mom forgets to communicate things sometimes).

Resulka and some of the kids playing in the bedroom (Star Wars Legos!)

Aren't they so cuuuute?

You can see our pretty pan that Resulka's mom made for us for Christmas and the SUPER yummy deviled eggs we made.

Cheese it!

Lighting the candles...

There was Dad and Megs. 65 and 8.

I can remember when the lighting of the cake was fascinating. Miss those days.

GO DAD~! He's still got it.

Aww, my sister is the prettiest lady around!

Stuffs...

2007-07-03T03:52:00.000-07:00

So they said they are going to offer him the job, just waiting on the official papers and all that good stuff. If this happens, we're moving to California. Mostly happy about it, but lots of sad stuff, too.

All our family is here. With Alisa's new baby and most likely being the last baby in my family unless Devon does something stupid, I'm sad that I won't get to see her grow. I went to her blessing this past Sunday - she was the cutest. My mom and I went to get her dress and headband the day before. Lots of driving for me, ick. Took Resulka to the airport, picked him up, and ran lots of errands while he was gone. Anyway, excited to get away, be near the beach again and all that, but I will miss my family. I've gotten close to Resulka's family and my mom and I have spent more time together, so that's been good.

There are a lot of things bugging me right now, but I'm not going to go into detail.

I hate morning sickness, but there's nothing to be done about it. Wish it was there for the REAL reason, but whatever. I think all the stress is getting to me. Mmm, I'll get pictures collected soon-ish and will probably post more.

FINALLY ordered the wedding album thingy. Hopefully that will be done soon. Looks like the photographer is doing the cool magazine style books NOW, which I'd been dying for before. GRRRR.. I wonder if he'd let me change it or do another for a little more. I dunno.

I feel like a lot of things were going good for a while, but then I realize how little I really knew the people I love. Its totally crushed me and I've been trying to deal with it in my own way - withdrawal.

That's that for now. Really should get some sleep.

Heather and Staci - you guys are really awesome. Love ya tons.

Sometimes...

2007-06-29T03:43:00.000-07:00

I just want to say GRRAWR!

Resulka is off in California for an interview tomorrow (well, today) for a super cool company, but I'm not going to say anything else so I don't jinx it. Excited, though.

I'm driving. I hate it, but I'm driving.

Cranky lately - very cranky.

Whee!

2007-04-03T09:26:00.000-07:00

At last I am posting!

Its been HECTIC! Lots of stuff happened in February, we moved these last couple of weeks, and now I'm on a computer I just built! Resulka also built one - which means things are a little different right now and I can't seem to find his computer on the network to grab pictures for posting. *gasp*

I really wanted to do a REAL post today with lots of fun stuff and cool pictures, but I'm feeling too lazy/tired to post from his computer or try to get it showing on the network. I ache all over. SO - this is what you get for now. I will be posting lots of stuff in the next few days, hopefully.

LOVE my new computer/monitor! Whee!

HAIR!

2007-01-24T12:53:00.000-08:00

I am TEH FOIL HEAD!

Resulka treated me to some highlights! Our little family went to get our hair cut and I got me some pretties in mah hair.

The Boy really liked that they had a PS2 to play. He made friends with the guy sitting there.

It threw me off that Resulka brought the camera in. I guess he was excited too.

Here's the TOP!

And the be-oo-ti-ful back.

Sun-kissed.

(I didn't spend as much time straightening it as I should have, eh.)

This one's for you, Staci!

Classics

2007-01-23T17:03:00.000-08:00

"Hello. My name is Amigo Mantoya. You killed my father, prepare to die."

So it all started out with an invite to watch a really cool movie with us.. The Boy is now obsessed. For the life of me, I can't get him to say "Inigo Montoya," but it makes it all that much cuter/funnier. He insists we tell him "Stop saying that!" and proceed to fight him with whatever we have to hand.

We got our hands on The Princess Bride, the Dread Pirate Roberts version. It was great that The Boy was able to watch the whole thing through with us without losing much interest.

Then a couple nights ago The Boy and I were coloring and I was doing a picture of Aurora and Prince Phillip and turned Sleeping Beauty on to make sure I got his clothes right. The Boy became enthralled. He was glued to the movie and wanted to watch the whole thing the following night (last night).

I've gotten slightly back into scrapbooking. I did 5 pages in 2 nights, from Christmas 2004, I think it was. I can't wait to get all the prints from the wedding. I've gotten tons of fun stuff with my gift card and as presents. Yay! That's what we've been up to lately.

My Castle

2007-01-09T19:55:00.000-08:00

This is my castle.

Okay, not really. This is the Estate we stayed in for 4 days and 3 nights for the annual New Year's party. Its is the beautimous.

I loved how it looked like a castle. It was quite large and the tower looking thing was REALLY cool.

Where the bottom windows are is where the formal dining is. Then the upper windows are where this gorgeous little sitting area is, with two armchairs, some shelves, a little table and a big window seat are, just off of a big room. Then on top of THAT, there's a cool turret for kids.

There wasn't much snow, but we did have a frozen pond to skate on.

And the back of the estate. Sooo big.

The whole wall to the left of this picture is just windows. The ceiling is hugely vaulted, and the Christmas tree was enormous. It took me a long time to absorb the enormity of the place.

Ze Wii fun! We're making sure everyone gets a Mii made. "Real men Wii standing up."

I beat 11 people in a tournament game of Poker. That was great fun, the hot tub was fabulous and we had the cutest little room. The place was decorately nicely and there was PLENTY of room.

So I'm kind of bummed we didn't get any other pictures on our camera through that whole time staying there, but others did. For some more photos - NYE 2007.

I could go into more detail, but I'm getting tired. That's all for today!

Presentos

2007-01-09T19:45:00.000-08:00

My presents were pretty cool this year.

Santa brought me Jane and the Genius of the Place, Jane and the Stillroom Maid, The True Darcy Spirit, and The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Althea Darcy. Santa got me an Eragon bookmark in addition to the dice and button that were in my stocking. Resulka and TB got me Darcy's Story. Resulka gave me a PINK NintendoDS, a baby blue carrying case, and a Princess Peach game case that holds 6 games, and of course, Lunar: DragonSong.

My mom gave me the pretty blues and grey sweater. Resulka, the robe. My mom gave him Lego Star Wars I, TB and I got him Lego Star Wars II. I don't feel like putting down all the rest he got. Lots of gift cards all around for family, etc.

Its just so pretty..

The Boy + Cat

2007-01-09T18:59:00.000-08:00

I meant to post this before all the Christmas stuff!

The Boy and I were hanging out on the bed together one day and Cola (my brother's cat that we are taking care of for a while) jumped up and crawled into his lap and was butting her head into the crook of his arm. He looked up at me, "What is she doing?" This is foreign to him. "She really likes you and wants you to pet her." So he does.. and she arches into him, loving every minute of it.

Then he looks at me. "Aren't you going to get the camera?"

I about died. It was super funny, he was blank-faced serious. So I get the camera and he tries to pose with her.

The other cats would freak if he did this to them (which is one of the reasons they stay away from him), but Cola was eating it up.

She was actually trying to reach his face with her nose.. she looooves her face to be rubbed. Very social, lovey kitty.

Then he has the idea he'll get Kairi in on it too - she'd have none of it.

Christmas Day

2007-01-09T15:11:00.000-08:00

Part of our Christmas was bought with some of the leftover gift cards from the wedding. This cute reindeer, the dish, and rocks were all bought that way. My first Christmas decor besides the tree stuff.

When The Boy arrived at some time between 12 and 1 o'clock we started in on the goods. He got to explore his stocking first, then I did, then Resulka. Then The Boy helped the cats with their stockings.

I got some pretty turquois frosted dice!

And I absolutely love my "Hunter" button from World of Warcraft!

I think he's excited...

Cutest miniature Scrabble, ever! The letters are tiny magnets.

The traditional oranges! I found it odd that Santa had never brought oranges to Resulka and The Boy before. I need to find the "Christmas Orange" story.

The kitties' stockings had toys, treats, and catnip filled fun.

Santa brought me lots of books! I loves 'em.

"Its a T-Rex skin!" The pillow in the background was another present.

DUN DUN DUUNNN....

The Wii!

Its so beautiful..

I got Resulka the base thing, with two decorative Zelda snap on pieces that go in the front, and the green and grey/black Zelda remote sleeves with Zelda symbols, and the Zelda game case. We got all the nunchucks after Christmas, though, before New Year's.

Christmas Morning.

2007-01-09T12:59:00.000-08:00

When we got up in the morning we stared at the tree and presents. It was a pretty sight. Then we sat around, me being very dejected. After a while we got ready for the day, my hair was still somewhat wet when we took the present pictures!

Its kind of hard to see, but there's circles on three things on the tree. I got the little ballet dress from when we went to see The Nutcracker. I also go the Ballet West 2007 Calendar.

Then there's a blue circle around a cute little elephant that has 2007 embroidered on his foot with a $5 gift card for The Boy, Target ftw.

Then there's a red circle where Santa left him a Cars ornament with candy inside.

So Santa has a tradition with the B-family that I wasn't familiar with. He would only bring them one big present each and set it up for them in front of their stockings. So I got to see what that was like.

Santa brought The Boy this really cool Cars track with a dirty Lightning McQueen.