Happiest Place On Earth

July 30, 2012

Another of my favorite places is Disneyland.  I LOVE that place.  

We took Tommy when he was 3.  

 Tommy and & went with some friends for a day trip when were in California in 2002.

 I took Grace when she was 3...since Tommy got to go at 3, it was only fair.  Plus, I will use any excuse to go to Disneyland.

 I even made the entire family go for my 40th birthday.  None of my picutres are on this computer though, so I can't share.
My friend, Nikki, and I took our girls for Grace & Alex's 10th birthday in 2010.

I adore Disneyland! 

I am hoping someone takes me to DisneyWORLD for my 45th birthday.  Although a trip to good old Disneyland would be great too.

While You Were Away

July 29, 2012

We are off to Montreal for a week.  Yipee!  

So I am filling in posts with some of our past vacations.  I will start with Portland, OR.  One of my favorite places on Earth...because one of my favorite people on Earth lives there.  

Here is the first trip we took as a family (pre-Grace) in the summer of 1998.

 Then the whole family went back in 2005 and we took a day trip to Mount St. Helens.

We came to Portland on the Amtrak from Seattle/Lopez Island.  We had a fun time traveling by train.

 This trip was me and the kids. In the summer of 2008.

At Powells Book Store...the best book store ever!

Although I went back about a year and a half, I think it's time to visit Portland again.

Back to School...sort of

July 21, 2012


Yesterday Grace and I worked at the Back To School Clothing Drive from 7:30-1:30.  It was an amazing, fun, and exhausting experience.  The organziation provides school clothes (including socks, undies & a belt), books, a pair of shoes, and a back pack stuffed with school supplies to literally thousands of low-income students.  Grace and I worked as personal shoppers.  We were paired up with one or more students and we walked them through the shopping "departments."  I shopped with 6 and Grace shopped with 12!!  Siblings were grouped together, so some times we had more than 1 student.  This all took place in the arena of a local private college.  It was a crazy how much stuff they had.
Grace wanted to shop all day long, but I was wiped out by 1:30.
An interesting note: all the schools from my elementary school district were there...including my alma mater, Cordova.  Afterwards, Grace & took a little drive by my former school and house.  Yikes! sums up my reaction pretty well.  What a difference 30 years makes.

Those seats in the arena are COVERED in backpacks.  About 9,000, all full of school supplies.

Here is a view of the departments on the floor of the arena.  

Grace with one of her little student shoppers.

Grace with her family of four students.  

Another view of the departments.  

Family Game Night

July 9, 2012

I instituted Family Game Night on Saturday. The hot weather was making everyone watch entirely too much TV. We have all seen every single episode of the Big Bang theory at least twice So TV off after dinner and out came the Monopoly game and Bingo. Tommy crushed us in Monopoly although Grace put up a good fight. Then I pulled out the really old Bingo game. I got a lot of grief for choosing that particular game. But everyone wanted to be the caller so I don't think it was such a bad call (pun intended).

All In

The whole family got in the pool for a swim today. We couldn't remember the last time that happened.

I Love A Parade!

July 5, 2012

This year we were stuck in town for the 4th.  Although I would have rather been in Flagstaff where it is lovely and there are fun holiday festivities there, we had amazingly cool weather.  It was in the low 80s and sprinkling in the morning when we headed out to the Arcadia Neighborhood Parade.  The night before we had our friends over so the girls could decorate their bikes.  The Lebels used the tandem so Alex could join the parade since she has a cast on and can't pedal herself.  She even made it on the local news report yesterday morning.  Check her out here (I am in it too, for about the first 4 seconds...on the right side on a green bike with a r/w/b plaid dress on)

Arcadia's 4th of July Parade - FOX 10 News - Phoenix, AZ | KSAZ-TV

Here are a couple other pictures I took.

Grace refused to smile.  

Unfortunately, the Country Club didn't have a fireworks show this year.  I am still grumpy about that.  The only fireworks we saw were on TV...in NYC.  Hope you had a wonderful 4th!