Going Up??

Ever wonder what its like to live with a monkey? Here's a day in the life with a monkey. Not even a whole day, just a snippet.....

Here's the scene: Daddy is taking the kids to the park. Note the two very excited little ones bouncing all over each other waiting not-so-patiently for Daddy to finish tying his shoes. Hurry up, Dad!! says the older one. Daddy sends them out to the garage to get into the car. Daddy is racing out the door to the car to catch up to the kids. Thinking the kids are actually inside the car (wishful thinking Daddy!), Daddy hits the garage door button to open it up. Daddy, momentarily standing in shock, watches as his 2 year old monkey, uh I mean daughter, is holding fast to the bottom of the garage door as it is rising slowing up to the top. Whee!! says the giggling monkey as the older brother looks on wondering when he can try that....

Let's just say life is never boring....

Little Rooms, BIG changes....

Meagan's got a BIG Girl bed!!

It wasn't so much time for her to move up, but that we needed to take apart the bunk beds in Tony's room. I've never been completly sold on the whole bunk bed idea. Too many ways to get hurt. I doubt we would have bought a set but a neighbor was getting rid of his and asked if we wanted them. Both the kids loved them- instant jungle gym!! -especially Meagan. She is an excellent climber and truly loved climbing up the bunks, even if getting down was a small problem. There was that little thing called GRAVITY, which she insisted on testing, but it really wasn't too bad. To tell you the truth, I was sort of ok with the climbing. I had problems when Tony came racing down the hall yelling "Mommy, mommy- come look. This is SOOOO cool!" He somehow managed to lift the top bunk off 2 of the bottom posts and it was offset in such a way that it was barely on the other 2 posts, as Meagan was happily bouncing away on the bottom bunk. I had real problems with that! The bunks came down the very next day, Meagan got the top bunk in her room and Tony got the bottom one in his. A little bit of rearranging in both rooms, and now they are all set. Tony even got his own alarm clock and radio- the best part of the whole thing if you ask him!

Sundial Fun

Nana & Papa were here for the weekend and on Saturday morning we wandered through the arboretum and the Sundial Bridge. The bridge was designed by Santiago Calatrava and built a few years ago. It is a functioning sundial and spans the Sacramento river. On one side of the bridge is the Turtle Bay museum and the other is the McConnell Arboretum.

Fun in the Snow

Happy New Year!!

Here's a quick slide show of our New Year's fun at Nana and Papa's house. There was lots of snow this year so the kids and I had a blast sledding and making snowmen. I even tried out snow shoeing, which was fun...

On the home front we've been up to our eyeballs in small projects around the house. Tom is back to brewing beer with a vengance- he's made 3 batches in the last 2 weeks. There is an English bitter, an Amber ale and an unknown (possibly an ESB?? What happens when you start out making a pale ale, but add the wrong yeast??) bubbling away in the garage. I dusted off the cheese press and have a Monterey Jack aging and Tony and I made mozzerella last week for our pizza. The new porch cover for the garage is just about finished, all it needs a coat of paint. Oh, and the kitchen is just about ready to be painted and we can finally say it is finished too. So the kitchen took just about 4 years to get to this point, but hey at least we've made it! We left off the crown moldings and backsplash when we initially installed the cabinets. They have been sitting in the garage all this time and we had to make room for all the beer....One thing leads to another, you know how it goes.... I'll post pictures of all this later.

ElfYourself...

For your Christmas pleasure....

SNOW!!

It snowed!! We woke up this morning to a very fine dusting of snow! Very unusual for these parts. It lasted for most of the day, and then it was gone....There's a chance for more tonight, but I doubt it will be much. Anything more than this and town shuts down, we just aren't equipped to deal with the white stuff....

Where's the snow??

One of the really nice perks of having Nana & Papa back home in the states is beautiful forest that surrounds their house is perfect for Christmas tree cutting....well, that and the fact that they let us visit often is nice too!! This year's adventure led us to a new spot where there were many to choose from. It took awhile to pick the best one, but I suppose that's half the fun. The only thing missing this year was the snow. Maybe next year!