May 5, 2007

I'm becoming more and more aware lately of the importance of the people in my life. I'm working on simplifying as much as possible so that I can spend more time with people and less time on things. Maybe I'm just getting old, but time has just flown by and I'm very aware that "some day" has to be right now. If I don't plan to make things happen, life will just happen and I will miss out on what really matters. That being said, the kids and I went to my mom's and dad's house this evening just to hang out. The kids asked several times, "Why are we going to grandma's??" They enjoy going to grandma's house but we usually have a specific reason for going. My parent's live 15 minutes away and we only see them on birthdays and holidays. I want to make the time while I can to hang out with them because I can. My sister brought her two kids over, too, and we tried to watch "Night At The Museum" but it was pretty difficult with all the noise going on. It was good noise, though, so it was OK.

My mom bought these Saint Patrick's Day hats way back in March so she could take seasonal pics of the kids, but we were too busy (sigh. . .) to have ours taken at the time. Better late than never!!

My mom with the grand kids:

My dad with the grand kids:

Gloria and Spencer are very similar. Tonight I convinced Gloria to rap for grandma and grandpa and Spence was more than happy to join her:

Friday, May 4, 2007

Rob and I had a lunch date today just the two of us. We met at Mongolian BBQ and had a nice lunch together before going into work.

Zach and Gloria played hard today with the neighborhood kids and are settling down for the evening with a game of Playstation:

Urban Arts Festival

Our event on Thursday went really well. I would have to say it was one of my favorite events so far.

It could have something to do with the set-up location. We were right across the street from my favorite hang-out:

"Don't bother me, I'm eating."

For this event, our stage had to be placed in the middle of a well-driven street. The street could not be blocked to traffic until 12:30, so we were really under the gun. The guys arrived around 11:30 and gave themselves a headstart by setting up the stage decks on the sidewalk. I had the most important job- fetching lunch.

Setting up the stage and the canopy has taken around 6 hours in the past and we only had about 4 hours to set up the stage and the canopy plus full concert sound.

Dale gets the dirty job of clamping and shimming the stage.

Gloria helped someone plant flowers along the street while we were setting up.

This picture was taken about 3 hours into the job and the stage and canopy are mostly ready to go. Fortunately, the sound sets up pretty quickly and we were good to go at the 4:00 event start time.

Zach doesn't enjoy these events as much as Gloria, but he was drawn in by the drummers and dancers. (That's him over behind the chairs)

Bill Coffey and Ned Evett played the first set on the stage. Bill is a good friend of my sisters, so it was fun getting to meet him after hearing her talk about him for so many years. Ned is a fretless guitarist that plays all over the world. www.nedevett.com and www.billcoffey.com

There were plenty of artsy activities available. Gloria visited this table quite a few times and made a little book that she used as an autograph book for all the dancers. (She didn't think the singers merited a place in her book).

The book:

The autographs:

A local dance school featured many different cultural dancers including this snake charmer:

Belly dancers:

Steve Fulton's group was the second band on the stage: www.stevefultonmusic.com

During stage change-overs between bands there were dancers and drummers of every age in front of the stage.

The third band on stage, The Moody Jews, had a very interesting story to tell with their music. They combine traditional jewish music with the sounds of the different cultures the jews have integrated with in history.

The event wrapped up with Potato Matata - drummers, dancers and Fire Spinners. Zach and Gloria sat right up front to watch the finale':

I enjoyed this event for several reasons: The location was lovely, I didn't have to do much of the physical end of the set-up, and the event planners did a great job with the flow of the show. I also didn't have to do too much of the tear down and actually went home before the stage and canopy came down. I could get used to this!

May 2, 2007

This morning Rob went shopping for new soccer shoes. Now, if I needed new shoes, I would dash into Walmart or Payless Shoes and grab the nearest pair of shoes in my size that met my current shoe requirements (more or less). I might try them on, I might not. Rob, on the other hand, usually goes to several different stores and tries on dozens of pairs of shoes and then goes back to the first store before heading back to the last store to try on a dozen of the pairs of shoes again before finally making a decision. His mom took him shoe shopping once way back when we were first dating and I'm amazed that I still married him. It was an all-day ordeal!! I thought it would be fun to tag along but for someone who hates to shop and steers clear of the mall at all costs, it was torture. After that experience, we generally don't shop together. He has bigger and better fish to fry these days so he limits his shoe shopping and today he limited himself to just one store. Gloria, I'm afraid, has inherited the shopping gene from her father. She wanted to look at everything in the store and she was sure she needed new shoes. Gloria LOVES shoes. She really doesn't like to wear them, she just likes to possess them. She found several pairs in the store that she just couldn't live without.

Of course, mean old mom didn't give in to any of her pleas and justifications:

I really do feel sorry for her. . .

We had another soccer game tonight. Blame it on the new shoes, I guess, but we lost again.

The youth group went bowling tonight. I picked Zach up at the bowling alley and took a few pictures while they were finishing up:

Andrew Steve

Shawn Jered

Stephy Alyssa

It was fun watching everyone bowl. Zach rolled a strike just as I took his picture!!!

Happy May Day!

This evening there was a knock at the door and when I opened it all I found was this pretty little flower with a note! Happy May Day!!


Earlier today, the kids had to take their reading and language ISATs. I am very anti-standardized testing, so I dislike this process more than the kids. I always just tell them to do their best or I will have to disown them forever or at the very least I will be suddenly struck by how un-smart they are and be severly disappointed. They laugh hysterically when I say this because they know I already know what they know and don't really care what the tests say they know or don't know.


The tests were over by 3:00-ish so we stopped by the shop to finish up end-of-month stuff. I only stayed a couple of hours and went home to work on the house. It's rare that we are home in the evening in the middle of the week, so Gloria made the rounds to see if anyone could play. All her girlfriends were busy with homework, baseball, and dinner so she "settled" on the boy across the street. When it's just the two of them, they have a great time.

It wasn't long before a crowd of kids came over to play just as Zach was getting ready to take the dogs (Prince and Emma) for a walk. The next hour was pretty hysterical. The kids were excited at the prospect of walking the two big dogs and the dogs were excited at the prospect of mixing in with a pack of little kids. It was chaos trying to put on collars and leashes and keep the kids on the outside of the door so the dogs couldn't jump the gun in their excitement. The little one in this picture was especially excited- and afraid:

I had my hands full after that and couldn't take a picture, but I'm sure we looked like a traveling circus. Emma could hardly contain herself and strained against her leash so hard that I was being half-dragged down the sidewalk while she was being half-choked by her collar. Zach had Prince, who was better behaved, but wanted to smell everything and leave his mark as often as possible. The kids, ranging in age from 2 to 14, crowded along behind and in front, getting tangled and tripped up by the leashes and arguing about who liked who better and why couldn't they have a turn holding the leashes. Trailing behind the pack at a safe distance was our cat, Snowfie, who looked like she wanted to keep an eye on this craziness but she didn't want anyone to know she knew us. Things finally settled down- when we got home. It was quite an adventure.

I cooked a pan of lasagna tonight (the frozen kind, of course) and Gloria was so happy about it, I caught her licking her bowl clean!

Poor Zach can't have lasagna. It's funny, though, how even before we knew about his tomato allergy he wasn't crazy about lasagna and pizza anyway.