Happy Meat Birthday

This is Marty's birthday cake at TNDC Bring Your Own Steak Nite! Horrifying for the resident vegetarian!

Happy 46th birthday Marty!

Two Bozos

Murray comes over on Thursdays for a play date. The dogs just usually lay around all day.

But today at about 2:30 I heard all this snarling and growling from the other room. I just figured it was Ahi and Murray wrestling around. But after about 5 minutes, Daisy came in my office and looked at me as if to say, "aren't you going to tell those two bozos to settle down?"

I cracked up!

Tapioca

The other nite, I made "real" tapioca pudding. Not the kind with the instant tapioca but the kind with the real tapioca that you have to soak overnite. It was sort of a weird process....you soaked the tapioca overnite. Then you cooked it for one hour so that it was not boiling or simmering.....it was just super low heat. Then you added eggs and sugar and cooked til it was thick. Then you folded in beaten egg whites. It was ok but I have to say that I liked the taste of the quick tapioca better.

It was fun to try something new!

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!

Award

Grace's principal called last nite to let me know that Grace is receiving a district award in March. The award is for kids who have overcome barriers to excel at learning!

He said that when he approached all the 6th grade teachers, Gracie's teacher knew just who she wanted to nominate!

What a wonderful recognition for the hard work that she has put in for all her elementary school years!

I could NOT be prouder and want to make a BIG STINKIN' deal about it. But she is being more humble and doesn't want to do anything special. Another reason I love her.....she is so unpretentious.

Wild Cheers

You guess:

The cheering from the kids this morning was because:

a. I bought candy at the store
b. I did their laundry for them
c. We are having tuna noodle casserole for dinner
d. Bones is on TV tonite

You would think that they would be happy about a, b or d. But they were cheering for c.....we are having tuna noodle casserole for dinner!

Strange children!

Stanford vs Cal

Yesterday, Grace and I attended the Stanford women's basketball game vs Cal Berkeley. We went with Gracie's teacher and a bunch of the girls in her class. Her teacher is a huge basketball fan and wanted to share her love of the sport with the girls in her class. There were 20 of us who went and it was a great time! Stanford won by 2 points in over time. And it was a big deal because if Cal would have won it would have broken a 64 game winning streak at home by Stanford.

Beasts!

Drew, Jim and Jeremy went skiing yesterday. They have been so anxious to go but we have had a serious snow shortage. So finally we got a little bit of snow and they went screaming up to the mountains!


The snowboarder is Jeremy and the skier is Drew. Jim was the photographer. They were at Bear Valley and the weather was amazing.

State Cup Spaghetti Feed

On Friday Night the soccer team had a spaghetti feed to "carb" up for State Cup the next day. It must have worked because they won that game 3 to 1! Unfortunately, they lost the second game 2 to 0. One more game this afternoon....

Coyotes

Remember how I saw a coyote running down the street a couple weeks ago?

I just read an article that it is coyote mating season and that is why they are out wandering around! Not sure what kind of mate he is looking in the neighborhood!?!

Cement Shoes....again.

I have posted before about how occasionally I feel like I am wearing cement shoes when I go for a run. I felt that way this morning. I ran only a mile and a half and thought I was going to die. Then I did 45 minutes on the bike and had to really push myself to get through it.

When I feel that way, it always makes me starting thinking:

"Oh my God....I suddenly hit old age!"
"Oh my God... I must be getting sick!"
"Oh my God...I am in terrible shape and will never be able to run again!"

But then....I realized the reason I had no energy is I never ate dinner last nite and was trying to fuel my work out on a piece of pecan pie I at at 3:30 pm the day before! DUMB DUMB DUMB!

I See the Light!

We were sitting on the couch tonite in our living room that is lit up like a football field at nite and started talking about how over the top Jim was when he put all the lighting in the house.

And then Drew started counting all the lights he could see while sitting on the couch.....23! He could see 23 lights just from where he was sitting!

So then Jim walked around downstairs and counted 50 lights! We were cracking up! We decided we had enough lighting for all the houses on our street.

Contraband

Jim and I squeezed in a date this weekend - we went to see the movie "Contraband".

It is a story about a guy who used to smuggle contraband (drugs, money, etc) but stopped when he had a family. But then his brother in law got into the smuggling business and got into all kinds of trouble so he had to do one more run to get his brother in law's debts paid off.

It was a good action flick. Worth a rental when it comes out.

Gigi all Dressed Up

This is the new dog in my brother's family. Her name is Gigi and she is a Labradoodle. I always thought my two nephews were the ones that really wanted and needed a dog, but it turns out that my niece is the one who really needed Gigi. My niece is always dressing up Gigi....her she is wearing her best jewelry!

They got a great used dog. And I can not wait to meet her!

Howl!!!

I forgot to post this....

On MLK day, I was out in the morning with the dogs and it was later than normal (about 8:30 am) and we saw a coyote running down the middle of the street!

5 years and 1 month

A lot changes in 5 years...

Drew and his mama in Dec 06.

And then....Drew and his mama in Jan 2012!

Winter Ball 2012

Drew went to the Winter Ball last nite. He went with a group of six kids (3 couples). They went in a limo and were suppose to have dinner at a Greek restaurant, but they had the reservations wrong. So they went down the street to an Italian restaurant instead.

At the end of the nite, he was waiting at the hotel for Jim to pick him up when a girl from another dance that was held at the same hotel approached him. She told him she was a senior from the other school and asked him if he "judged people". Then she proceeded to tell him that she had just "dropped ecstasy". Drew said it was totally obvious as she was all jumpy. It was an interesting experience for him and eye opening to see someone on drugs like that.

This morning when we were all tired because we stayed up too late waiting for him to get home, we all talked about how crappy that girl must have felt today!

Dave

This Drew's gift to Grace for xmas. She calls him "Dave" and he just started growing his "hair". Check back for updates!

Wash those dishes!

At our house, you just never know what might happen...

Today, Jim's boat parts went thru the dishwasher! Right next to Ahi's bowls.

Bling

My friend Cindy gave me some new bling....a stache ring! I am wearing it to work today!

TNDC Word of the Week: Masticate

mas·ti·cate

verb (used with object), verb (used without object), -cat·ed, -cat·ing.

1. to chew.

2. to reduce to a pulp by crushing or kneading, as rubber.

You can imagine the sentences used and giggling that was had!

Nationally Ranked

Gracie's soccer team is is highly competitive and ranked nationally. Here are the latest results:

National Rank - 14
Region Rank - 11
California Rank - 6

Pretty impressive!

Shout out

A special shout out to the "Tias" in Cabo -- they are my newest readers. Whenever they want to do a guest blog from Cabo, they are welcome to send me an email highlighting their adventures. Or....I will always take pics of beautiful and unusual succulents!

Sprouts

Two nites ago, I ate way to many brussel sprouts for dinner after eating 2 cups of cauliflower for lunch! I had a huge belly bloat! I made Jim go with me for a walk to feel better.

You think I would have learned....I just scarfed 2 cups of brussel sprouts for lunch! What a dummy! Now I have to work the rest of the day with a brussel belly bomb.

Details

I got a hair cut yesterday at lunch time and every one of my family members noticed it last nite and said to me..."did you get a hair cut....it really looks nice."

You often hear about families where the members wouldn't even notice if the mom was missing a limb because they are so focused on themselves.

Not at my house! Nothing gets by these people!

Those people I live with really are nice people!

They fight over the craziest things!

You have read the blogs about how my family will eat anything....bear burgers, sushi, duck, etc. And they cheer over vegetables that many people hate - including high fives when we have roasted cauliflower.

Two nites ago I had a similar experience. I made green beans a new way. I steamed the green beans and then quick stir fried them in pam spray and chunks of garlic. After dinner, there were some green beans left and Jim and Drew were literally fighting over them! They were both sitting on the couch and Jim had a bowl full of green beans. Drew wanted some and said he should get some because it was "his" bowl Jim was using. They negotiated back and forth until Drew got two green beans!

I always giggle over kids who won't eat vegetables! At my house, we fight over them!

Checkerboard

We all had a serious discussion tonite at dinner. It revolved around whether or not to get checkerboard mirrors for the mini.

I want them and everyone one else says "NO WAY"! I even took them all in the garage to look at the mini and point out how cool they would look.

No go. I well....I guess it saves me $150!

Animal Style

I get the "World's Best Mom" award for making burgers for dinner that were "In n Out animal style"! I found the recipe last nite in Rachel Ray's magazine and as soon as I told Drew about them, they were on the menu for dinner.

My dinner was not as exciting - it was a black bean burger with a slice of cheese on top....no bun because I am working on losing the 3 pounds that I gained over the holidays!

Playoffs

Lucky Duck Jim got to go to the 49er vs Saints playoff game!

Last nite he dyed his goatee red....but it came out pink.....so he had to shave it off. Didn't think it would go over very well going on his "man date" with Mr. C with a pink goatee!

Shuffle

I have had some recent trouble with my ipod shuffle that I use for running. I will be mid-stride and it turns itself off! And that totally makes me crazy.....I immediately stop and start muttering to myself and pushing buttons! I can not run without music.

At first I was going to just go out and buy a new one - but I hate being part of such a disposable population - meaning, "if it doesn't work, throw it away and buy a new one". So I decided to trouble shoot it.

I updated the software on it and that did not work. So I reset the device to the factory settings and that did not work. So I took it to the Apple Store to see if there was anything they could do. Turns out it basically has a short in the battery and they could fix it for $50 or I could buy a new one for $50.

So I am the brand new owner of a new shuffle.

Now I need to load it up with some new songs.

A trip to the depot

Took a little field trip to the Restaurant Depot with Tina and Marty today. My Dad has been wanting to go to check it out and I was interested too. It was very fun!

I got this very large frying pan - the spoon is there for scale - and tea, spices, Mexican soda, gatorade, A-1 sauce, spices and two giant bins.

Imagine my disgust when I turned a corner and saw this giant display of ham! Ewwwwww!

Careful not to fall over...

Love this pic from this weekend's soccer tournament. How do you even run at that angle?

Remember?

Remember last week when there was five unknown ladies in the workout room with me and I giggled because it was a typical New Years resolution day? Well, today was spin day and I was back to being alone in the work out room! Those ladies didn't even last two weeks!

Mud Run

All four of us and a bunch of friends are going to do this race in April:

http://www.survivormudrun.com/locations/locations_nor_cal.htm

I am sure there will be good stories coming from it, so stay tuned.

Just FYI

I remembered my pants today at the gym and the day went much better than last friday!

2nd Place

Second place in this weekend's tournament! It is suppose to be winter but it was in the 70's today!

Not again....

I really need to slow my life down. When you are running around like a maniac, you do stupid things....like forget to bring your pants to the gym in the morning!

The funny thing is....when I was working out this morning, I was doing some introspective thinking about my like. I was listing out all the things I am involved in on a regular basis:

Team mom for Gracie's soccer team
Fulltime (plus some) employee
Mom of two very active kids
Mentor at work
Chair of the "families with kids with special needs" group at work
Wife
Mom of two needy dogs
Grant writer
Board member of a charitable organization
Blogger
Athlete (ok - I use this term only because I don't know who else to say I work out 5 to 8 times a week - athlete makes it sound more significant then it really is!)
Host of TNDC
Vacation Planner
Logistical Guru
Financial Planner

So I am working out and thinking of all this stuff and thinking about what I would remove from the list. And I am not willing to give up any of it. That's when I say to myself, "well, you can't ever say, you don't have a full and rich life.....and you can manage all that stuff....just keep plowing forward."

That was before I realized that because of all these commitments, I sometimes miss the little details such as making sure you have a pair of pants for work!

Anyway...I do some quick problem solving and decide to just wear my yoga clothes - that I keep in my office - for the day. But first, I have to put on my sopping, sweaty, wet workout pants on to get to my office! ICK! Then I use the socks that I keep in my office for daytime walks and go to the company store to buy a tank top to wear under the sweatshirt I have!

I look quite sporty today at work. Luckily it's Friday and people are super casual on Fridays --- NOT yoga casual --- but at least its not suits and tie day!

The worst part about this whole thing is I can't go to yoga at lunch. I mean really....I would be doing yoga in the clothes I am wearing and then come right back to work in the same clothes! That's too weird!

In the car...

This is a pic of Daisy on the way home from two long weeks at the cabin! She is in the back seat with her back foot in her lip!

New Years Resolution

So, I am in the gym this morning doing my normal routine....today was 60 minutes of spin followed by weights. I normally do spin in the exercise studio which is not being used by a class that early in the morning.

Normally, I am there BY MYSELF. Today....there were 5 women in there with me, who I had never seen before, doing various exercise routines.

That is when it dawned on me that it's the beginning of the new year and everyone has their exercise resolutions!

Not to worry - they won't be there next week!

Working from Home

Here is my office mate when I work from home. She likes to sit in the desk chair behind me.

Shortly after I took this first picture, I looked back and she was sound asleep! I wish I could do that at work!

A new niece

I have a new "niece" - the four legged variety! My brother's family adopted 7 year old Gigi, a labradoodle!

Look at that face!

Early Intake

This was our last cache for the day - it was across a road from this metal shack that contained the cable mechanism for building the Early Intake Power Plant, which is on Cherry Lake Road.

Berkeley Camp Ben Memorial

Cache #2:

N 37 51 972
W 119 58 096

Grace and Bug found this one under a boulder.

A tree had come down in a recent storm and fallen across the river, so Jim and Drew climbed across it. The river was covered with ice in spots and we were just hoping they were not going to fall in.

Down by the River

The TNDC Stache Cache Crew did some geocaching at:

N 37 499 341
W 119 55 112

This was a place along the river off of Highway 120 and was pretty easy to find.