BYOS

TNDC this week is: "BYOS" - Bring your own steak!

The men love this menu plan! Everyone brings their own steak and we grill it up. We end up with a pile of horrific grilled meat! Other menu items include potato casserole, salad, veggie and baked beans.

Training

We are doing a mud run in April - all 4 us and a bunch of friends (the Screwtops, the Cindys and Crash's family) and I have been training. I was only running a couple of times a month before I started training. I was doing other stuff but just not running a lot. Now I am back to running about 3 times a week and easily run 3 miles at a time! Woot! But....I will still be the slowest runner in the pack when we do the race.

I am going to put a sticker on my butt during the race that says:

this is my race pace!

Clean Carpet - hurray!

We got the carpet cleaned today. And at first the dogs were fired up because we moved all the furniture out of the family room and they thought is was a big 'ole wrestling ring! They took out all their toys and raced around!

But then, once it was cleaned and needed to dry, they were stuck in the kitchen and they were NOT happy! This is them moping on Daisy's pillow!

Cabin Time

We had a long weekend at the cabin this weekend and squeezed in as much fun as possible:

Skiing at Dodge
Skiing and hiking at Badger
Hiking to Natural Bridges (a cool new hike spot)
Boating on New Melones (in a huge windstorm!)
Hitting golf balls
Lunch at the club

We had two special guests:

Marty for his 46th birthday (Tina was in Disneyland)
Kody - Drew's buddy from school

All in all - it was delightful - and much needed cabin time!

Family Portrait

A family that shoots together, stays together.

You know you are a redneck....

When you go to the birthday party of a 50 year old female relative and it's at the paint balling field!

Jim's cousin, Bronwyn, who happens to be a wonderful and classy lady, had her 50th birthday at a paintball place. About 30 friends and family spent 4 hours shooting each other and then went to her house for a party.

It was a hoot to watch grown adults and kids running around shooting each other. I decided to skip the paint balling for fear of injury!

In case you can't tell, from left to right in the pic above: Grace, Drew and Jim.

Regionals

So....remember the BIG soccer game that the girls lost in penalty kicks?

Well, the next level of play is the regionals in Arizona. And because we lost the game, we did not earn a spot to play in Arizona. Which was ok with us because it is scheduled for right in the middle of our Hawaii trip.

BUT....last nite, we got word that we won a wildcard spot and have been invited to play.

Good news for the team!

Bad news for me and my Hawaii vacation!

Grandpa Roy Update

Grandpa Roy is in the hospital still but its just for a minor complication unrelated to the heart attack. He should be home today!

Grandpa Roy

Jim's Dad, Grandpa Roy, had a heart attack yesterday.

It went down like this:

He was working with Jim in the morning when he said he didn't feel good and was going home. He got in his truck and drove away - Jim didn't think anything because he had been sick with a sinus infection.

Apparently he went home and was feeling short of breath and had mild chest pain. So he drove himself to the hospital, parked way out in the parking lot and walked into the ER. They saw him coming because he looked so sick and took really quick action.

They immediately suspected a heart attack. They stabilized him and sent him to another hospital for an angiogram. During the angiogram, they found 3 affected arteries:

1 was 100% closed - it looked like it had been closed for a while
1 was 95% closed with a blood clot
1 was moderately occluded

So they went in and put stents in all of them. The procedure went well and they expect he will come home from the hospital today.

Overall.....we are darn lucky!

Happy Valentines Day

This is Gracie's valentines gift from us! Her cousin Jack had one this weekend and was a smoothie making maniac. And Grace loved it. So now she has her very own!

Jim's choice

Last nite was Jim's choice for dinner. He got rained out of work so he got the job of getting groceries. So I made a quick list and said that last nite's dinner was his choice.

So I came home from work to:

* Steak
* Twice baked potatoes
* Green beans in garlic
* Salad
* And.....marinated tofu!

YUM! What a great dinner!

Gigi in person

I got to meet my new doggie niece this weekend! And I love her already! She has got to be the sweetest dog I have ever met. And after about 4 hours with her, I had already decided that she could come and live with me if she ever needed to!

All lined up!

The other highlight of the weekend was a visit with Uncle B, Auntie D, Sam, Jack and Mimi (and their new doggie - Gigi)! Soooooo fun to just hang out!

State Cup Feb 2012

Wow - what a weekend!

Most people would look at our weekend as a sum total of Gracie's team came in 2nd place in the State Cup after an intense battle that included 2 ten minute overtimes and ended in losing in penalty kicks to a team that they had just dominated for 50 minutes!

But there was so much more to it...

Grace had recently lost her soccer mojo and was just starting to get it back. AND in this game, she was on FIRE! She played with so much skill and heart that I was incredibly proud.

But she also took the loss very hard. She said it is so disappointing to play that hard for that long and then lose in penalty kicks. I don't know how that feels, so I don't have any good words of wisdom.

I was most proud of her when after losing the game, she wanted to give candy to the opposing team when they accepted their championship medals. So she set up her team to go up and shake an opposing teams player's hand and give her candy after she received her medal. True class!

All in all, there were lessons in perseverance, kindness and friendship.

And although I wanted to vomit the whole time from the stress, I am glad I was there to see the personal growth and determination in Grace. She truly rocks!

Black Sheep

After Murray and Daisy de-fluffed a stuffed toy, the kids took all the fluff and covered Murray so he looked like a sheep.

DANGER - Don't Knit and Drive

Yesterday I saw a woman knitting while driving. Well, actually I only saw her doing it at a light. But if I can't text at a light, she shouldn't be able to knit - right? I mean really, aren't knitting needles inherently more dangerous then a cell phone? I have never heard of someone in a car accident being impaled on a cell phone - but it could totally happen with knitting needles.

Uncle Dave

My Uncle Dave came out this weekend from Kentucky to join my book club and me for our trip to see the movie, "One for the Money"! "One for the Money" is a movie based on a book by Janet Evanovich. Dave and I both love her books and when we heard that there was going to be a movie based on her first book, we started talking about him coming out for the show! He is such a dork that he got us all t-shirts made that had "Plum's Posse" on them - the main character is Stephanie Plum!

We made sure he had the full experience, so we also took him to one of Gracie's indoor games, went for a walk and had a Superbowl party. The pic above is Uncle Dave cracking crab for crab stuffed mushrooms.

The highlight of his weekend was winning a $100 Superbowl pool.

It was a really fun weekend and really is what life is all about - family and friends!

212

On Wednesday nite at dinner some how the topic of weight came up and Jim proceeded to report to all of us that he weighed 212 pounds. The kids and I cracked up and told him "no way"!

The next nite, at TNDC, Jim reported the conversation to the crowd and again insisted he weighed 212. That was all we needed. I quickly called a girlfriend who has a scale and went to her house to get it.

We all stood around while Jim:

Stripped down to a pair of shorts
Pushed out his belly
Sucked in his belly
Flexed his muscles

And we all made guesses on his actual weight.

After much showmanship, he stood on the scale and........weighed 225.8!

World's Best Grandma

My mom gets the world's greatest grandma award. But it's not for what you would expect:

Being a taxi cab driver for her grandkids
Making us yummy dinners
Always being there for whatever we need

She gets the award because she got her granddogs "greenies" for xmas and they LOVE them! Daisy is always going into the pantry and standing there waiting for someone to give her one. I have never seen the dogs so excited about a snack!