Hunger strike is over

It lasted about 4 hours. BTW, in case anyone cares...we are supposed to get 5-10 inches of snow overnight. We can't win. We are so close to onstreet parking.

It sucks to be Matt

Matt's grades came today. He had F's in Social Studies, Math and German. He has had music,internet,video games taken away from him for the semester. He has to sit and do some sort of homework for an hour every day. The Bass lessons are gone. I will have to arrange for the bass to be picked up. Randy wants him pulled from Orchestra, don't know that I agree with that. He is one unhappy dude. The comments have ranged from "I will be leaving on Monday"-don't know what is special about Monday to You are not my family anymore, to I am on a hunger strike. His point is we are killing him. NO, don't think so. He has an evaluation on 2/7 with a psychiatrist for a medication adjustment.

Snow again

We are now 7 for 7. 7 weeks straight it has snow. Kristen made the comment, it will never melt. Matt's response? No lawnmowing. Today is bowling and shopping for Kristen and me. Matt and Randy will be going to run some model trains. No food in the house so I plan to get fried mushrooms and coffee at the bowling alley for breakfast. Matt had a lean cuisine meal, Kristen had pizza rolls. My boss has yet another funeral in Louisiana next week, so I will be quite busy this week. I also have a presentation in front of 16 principals, Connie's boss, and the asst superintendent. Once that is over, the rest of the week will be a piece of cake. Of course my most important question for this type of event is what to wear, what to wear!

In honor of Valentines day

I changed the template. If you don't like it, don't worry, it will disappear eventually.

Musings

Matt had his 5th schedule change this semester(which started after Martin Luther King day). Hopefully this latest one is a keeper.

The dog is mesmerized by headlights-I think she believes she is on stage or something.

Kristen is doing well in school. Her report card showed one A and the rest B's. Still waiting for Matt's.

Matt's orchestra festival is Monday night. Today Kristen's new school plays her old school in b-ball.

The temps are getting warmer. Should have tons of meltage going on in the next two days before the temps drop by the weekend. For the 1st time in 6 weeks there is no storm forecast for the weekend.

Kristen is having a change in teachers. Her English teacher is going to a different school mid year. She will meet her new teacher today.

Finally watched the last of the movies I rented weeks ago. Little Miss Sunshine was extremely funny. I think that is the only Academy Award nominee I have seen.

Hopefully we will be back to a 4 burner stove tonight.

Bored yet?

Snow again.

No, this is not 1/14/07 entry reposted. We woke up to yet another snowfall. This one apparently is 2-6 inches. We have 1.5 inches at 8:16 am. Joy. But the good news is Randy is home and can take charge of the snow removal once again. We had snow flurries yesterday and silly me thought we would get lucky for once this season. Oh well, we are not as bad off as the plains. They had blizzard conditions yesterday.

Sigh

The house is a wreck, I have to pick Randy up today and snow is on the way again and my son picks this morning to share about his life. So what do I do. Spend the time with Matt of course! Kristen wants to go to a kids night out at the rec center tonight so easy to motivate her, Matt and me not so easy!

Off to more cleaning!

Matt and the coffee table

Matt called me at work on Thursday stating the coffee table spontaneously fell apart. The glass cracked and broke and 2 pegs broke off. He thought the glass might still be able to be used. No, not if it was in pieces. The table was old(it was David's). Later I found out it had help from Matt's size 13 workboots that were resting on it.

Anyway-Here is the link to what I want to replace it with.

http://www.afwonline.com/ic280frm.asp?prodno=T353-O&COMBO1=3001&FurnType=OccTbl

Snow again

We woke up to snow again. Supposed to get 1-3 inches. Well we have that already and it is only 8:30. Kristen's confirmation fundraiser/dinner is supposed to be tonight. I hope they postpone it. Kristen made a room for the dog in her closet. Why the dog needs her own bedroom escapes me. The dog bed is in there as well as animal posters and a nightlight. Where did the dog sleep last night? With me. She better get used to her new room, because the constant sighing is getting old.

BRRRRRRR

It is so cold here. I have the heat cranked and still can't get warm. It is 5 right now and feels it. The kids and I went to see Night in the Museum. Totally cool movie. Matt and I loved it and K liked it more than she thought she would. K is now doing surgery on ducky's wing. Tomorrow is the confirmation fund raiser. Got K a white shirt at the mall. She wanted to do mucho more shopping but I wanted to get home before the temps dropped below 0. Making mac and cheese for dinner and maybe an apple spice cake. The cooking magazine came the other day. Thanks Mom. Planning on watching the Eagles game tonight. Fortunately, I won't have to stay up as late as you eastcoasterites to see it. Anytime you want me to ship snow and ice east let me know. Glad you checked out this totally boring post?

Storms

Yesterday we had 115 mph winds-yes that is level 3 hurricane. Western schools and roads in my district were closed. You open the car door and you better have a good grip or you can start looking for it in another county. We are expecting another storm Thursday into Friday. 10-12 more inches of the white, fluffy stuff. Joy. As if we don't have enough.

Now the impending storm at Matt's school. He comes home yesterday and says he had a schedule change. The orchestra class is too large so they split it. He is scheduled to have that 2nd period instead of first. Well he had English 2nd. So now he is scheduled to have that awful English teacher that I had him removed from in October. I don't think so. An email has been sent to be followed up by a phone call this morning. Let's take him out of a class where he has achieved some success and put him back in the class with the teacher who wants to fail him. Good move, geniuses.

Btw, Kristen's field trip got cancelled for today. They were supposed to go t to the Denver Science Museum, but only 10 kids turned in their money. 10 out of 120. Hmmm. Maybe parents did not get the message that it wasn't free or couldn't afford to pay.

Matt did use his best buy gift card for a game and accessories to his nintendo ds

Grocery shopping and snow

We cleared the driveway and sidewalks. 7 inches. Thank goodness for snowblowers. M/K both got to try their hand at it. Temp was 0 at 7:30 am. And there is another storm forecast for next Friday. Anyone want to do a houseswap? Anyone, anyone?

Grocery shopping was typical of R being gone
10 cans of spaghetti o's
2 boxes of ramen
ingredients for taco salad
mac/cheese
cookie crisp cereal-2 boxes
peanut butter choc ricecakes
2 boxes of icecream cones
stauffer's lasagne
tortilla chips
oranges/bananas(obviously my contribution)
mountain dew regular
milk
yogurt
2 large containers of OJ in fancy bottles-They were on sale Mom. Really? 7.00 per bottle is a sale? Ok. Whatever, let me out of this shopping nightmare. Onto Blockbuster for more fun.
There was not a movie made that my two kids can agree on, so a mere 29.95 later we are home.

Matt's comments-spaghetti o's are loaded with nutrition. Seriously?

Snow Day!

Yeah! We have a snow day. On top of the 2 plus feet of snow remaining from the blizzard, we are getting 6 more today. Not sure why school closed, but glad it did. Randy is on his way to Singapore(should land in a few hours) so the kiddos and puppy and I are just chillin. Kristen had 2 bagels for breakfast, Matt had ramen wanna be and I am having scrapple. Yummers. Enjoy the unseasonably warm weather, because it is not like that here. Doggie is quite annoyed that her nap scheduled has pretty much gone away!

Happy New Year

Happy 2007 everyone! We spent our typical New Years Eve with a seafood dinner and a game of Monopoly. I went out first followed quickly by Kristen and then the battle began in earnest. Matt and Randy playing Monopoly is not for the weak of heart.

Kristen went over to her friend kayla's house three times since we were home to work on a project for an elective class. I think Kayla's mom is far more concerned about this project than either girl.

Matt seems like he is moving on from Jen. The breakup was inevitable but she could have been a lot nicer about it. Matt was great until she found someone better. I think it was an eye opening experience for him. I took him to see Eragon to get his mind off his problems. Pretty good.

Today we moved the rolltop desk and all its contents down to the basement and moved the one computer desk into the dining room in its place. We did this so Randy had room to work in his office. He has taken back the compaq laptop and now I have the desktop up here. Kristen is ecstatic. I am ecstatic since this will open my work programs which the laptop would not. Now I do not have to drag my work laptop home every single night. It is 10:53 and still doing laundry that is needed for tomorrow.

Sad news: Randy's camping friend Gary died from liver cancer yesterday morning. Holli's coworker Sharon's father died this morning and Holli's boss is stuck in Texas due to the storms. It looks to be a busy week. Randy anticipates a trip to Singapore as early as this weekend.

Plans for tomorrow night: gift card redemption after homework. Weather was an issue and coordinating schedules. They chose sledding with friends yesterday over shopping. Today was all about keeping promise made to husband.

Poor matt

His girlfriend of 3 months broke up with him last night. Fortunately teenage hearts heal quickly. Looks like the snow is over for us. Kristen is going to a friends house to work on a project and matt wants to go to best buy. Other than that, more laundry etc. Kristen has been experimenting with the makeup. She wanted to know what the dog would look like with mascara. Fortunately she came to her senses before I had to take makeup away for a year.

Christmas Day at the Magic Kingdom

After checking out of the hotel, we headed to the beach one last time. Saw a herd of dolphins swimming up the coast. Totally cool. Next onto Disneyland-Kristen was waiting for this the entire week.

To begin, I hate crowds, Randy hates crowds, Matt did not want to be there because of his fear of rollercoasters. So what do we do, go to the place where dreams come true(only if those dreams do not include going on rides with out a 75 minute wait) on the busiest, most crowded day of the year! Make sense to you? The reason for doing this? Food. We could be guaranteed that we could get food. Anyway, after a 20 minute wait to get into the employee parking lot(Simba-long walk through downtown disney. Rode the monorail to tomorrow land. Did autotopia and a star wars type simulation there. Moved onto frontier land where we road the mark twain ship(only adult ride with no line). Did the thunder mountain railroad rollercoaster. It looked tame. Wrong. Matt looked extremely angry the whole time. Kristen was ecstatic. My neck hurt by the time we got off. Next off to Pirates of the Carribbean. Relatively short wait. They modified the ride to include things from the movies. Good changes. This was my favorite and Matt's. Next waited about an hour for Indiana Jones ride. They made changes too, but not for the better. Definitely not worth it. Ended up eating mediocre mexican food in California Adventure before leaving to head up to a hotel in Ontario to get a headstart on traffic for the trip home the next day.

Whale watching cruise II, California Adventure and what Californians do on Christmas Eve

Whale Watch: We dragged ourselves out of bed by 7am(this is harder than you would think) and tried the whale watch again with our handy dandy whale check vouchers. Please read prev blog entry if you do not know what I am talking about. This time we saw a pod of dolphins. They were having fun in the wake of the boat. I hopefully got one good picture. Beautiful day for it.D.L. Drove through Laguna Beach. This is a place I would like to come back to. For a family beach trip, I would want to stay in Dana Point. For a trip with just me and Kris or some other girls, Laguna Beach is the ticket. Much too artsy for the boys.

got to Disney land and survived the maze to the parking garage. Did California Adventure today. It was nice. Kris and I did a water ride, we all did the Ferris Wheel. Did the muppet 3-d show. Pretty good.

What Californians do for Christmas eve: They go to Denny's! Who would have thought it!

Seaworld

Yesterday was Seaworld and we are all tired of being together day. Randy was the most irritable but we all had our moments. The Shamu show was new. According to my friend karen, the previous one was 10 years old. Randy got some good footage and pictures. We pet a dolphin, so all the crucial shows, went into a few exhibits. Super crowded. Everyone in San Diego was there apparently. Stopped at the Fish Market for dinner. Randy's boss highly recommends this place. Matt got a huge bucket of clams. Randy got swordfish, Kris got a shrimp caesar salad, and I got mahi-mahi. Everyone had a good meal except me. The Mahi-mahi did not give up without a fight. We then went in search of laundry det. The dispenser in the hotel has none. I know they have it, but won't refill it. 7-11 comes through again. Did one load of laundry last night. Just enough to get by.

Whale watch and dinner

Yesterday we did a whale watch from Dana Point. Dana Point is where I wish we would have stayed. Next time. No whales or dolphins. Just sea lions sleeping on a buoy. Seas were really rough so I guess all the critters were down deep. R. says if we can get up early enough, we might try again tomorrow morning before California adventure. today is Seaworld. Last night we met my internet friend Karen in Santa Ana. Apparently we were all trying to meet at a restaurant that did not exist. Ended up eating at Pat and Oscars which is lower price Italian. Really good. None of the 4 kids had a good time. To be expected, but it is not always about them. Our kids were better behaved but they were older.

San Diego Wild Animal Park

Yesterday we travelled down to San Diego Wild Animal Park. Huge facility. Animals in more natural habitats. Lots of babies.They are a breeding facility so no major surprise there. Started out with a train ride out to all the large enclosures. Saw a silly baby elephant who was showing off. Lions, a sumatran tiger, lots of birds and monekeys, apes, all different kinds of African and asian hoofed species. Saw an elephant show and a bird show. Everyone liked this one better than the San Diego zoo except Matt. Kristen bought a stuffed lion. So now the count is up to three that she is sleeping with. The froggy pillow, the hardrock cafe bear and now the lion.

Today we are going on a whale watching cruise and then meeting my friend Karen at a Mexican restaurant in Santa Ana.