Friends

Uh oh!

J's Visit

I hope everyone has a friend like my friend, J. She just really knows how to have fun. And she brought some of that fun with her when she came to visit us this past few days. She leaves tomorrow, and we're very sad. The kids adore her because she's tons o' fun and sends them cool things from her travel adventures. I adore her because she'll sit through 12 hours of dance with me during her "vacation"! We joke about some of the attributes the kids have that are way more like her than either the king or I. She really is part of the family, and we're lucky to claim her in our family. We hope she comes back soon!

"Here Jeanette. I'll give you a Wii skiing lesson."

"You'll have to actually start the game at some point."

"You're going to want to lean a little to get him to turn."

"Maybe not so much. You'll fall off the Wii board."

She's SOOOO addicted now. We're pretty sure she's going home and buy one of these promptly. She mastered Wii Ski and Rockband guitar and drums.



Yesterday we went to Candy Town, USA. Every town should have one of these stores. We bought some Pop Rocks, and J challenged to princess to a Pop Rock eating contest. Who could get the package down first!


Ready, Set, GO!

"Try to get them all."

"Why is your mom taking photos of us?"
"My mom's a stalkaratzi with the camera. She always does that."
"Is this going to end up on the blog?"
"Oh yes!"

"They aren't as bad as I remember them being as a kid.
I don't think my stomach will blow up."

"Let me see YOUR tongue."

What you can't see from this photo is that J is also sticking out her tongue.

We're going to miss her when she leaves us, but we hope she'll be back to see us soon!

We're not in Kansas anymore...

The king and the prince left for Phoenix yesterday. They will see 3 days of spring-training baseball and were very excited for the warmer weather as they and their white legs boarded the plane! Last night the prince sent me this text-photo with the line, "Look what we saw on the interstate." YOW! He could have totally messed with me by saying, "Got in a wreck. Here's the other car." I'm glad he didn't! I'm kind of hoping the baseball games are a little less exciting.

Bling Alert!

The princess had a great day at dance yesterday. These awards are all hers to keep. There were awards that will stay at the studio too. Let's see if I can remember everything, but first let me say that the performances are judged in several categories depending on catagory of dance, age of dancer, number of hours a dancer dances and at this competition they are scored by diamond, ruby, emerald and sapphire, with diamond being highest:

Her duo for Puff the Magic Dragon was a diamond winner. In addition they won top in their category and a Judge's Choice Award. This was the "Peanut Butter and Jelly" award because they blended so well together.

Her team for Halo was a diamond winner. In addition they won their age group, their category, and third place overall for all afternoon performances.

Her solo for Anyway was a diamond winner. In addition she won top spot for her category and 6th place overall for all morning performances.

I have to say that their studio did very well. All performances were at a diamond level with only one exception. They took home a boat-load of awards and they had TONS OF FUN!!!

I'll post more photos later. It was a great day and we are so appreciative of all the support from our friends and family!

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary to Marty and Shelley--23 years--impressive. I wanted to post that photo of you two on the ship balcony on your Hawaii cruise, but I couldn't find it! Here's to 23 more... you guys should take us to Hawaii with you next time! :)

Happy Birthday Jajuan!

I know you're twelve today, but this picture of you is so sweet! Have a great day and year. We love you!

The Zonkey

A little humor to start our potentially stressful day of dance competition!

This is a ZONKEY.

I don't know if this is real or the awesome product of Photoshop, but it's clever either way!

TWO WORDS!

EARLY OUT!!!

Today we are out of school at 1:15, and boy do we need it. After testing last week and better weather this week, the kids are really quite certain that school should be out for the year. We also have a four-day weekend next week. Good thing!!!!

Competition

The princess has her first dance competition tomorrow. We are very excited and a little nervous. I have seen the group dance they do and the duo dance she does. I have not seen her solo. She wants it to be a surprise. I'm told that it's beautiful. Her dance teacher tells us it'll make us cry!! Yikes! So I am very excited for this fun time. She'll be at the theater all day. Her solo and duo are early in the morning. Awards are around noon. Then the group dances again in the late afternoon with awards for that part of the show around dinner time. She'll be exhausted. But it should be a great time. We're glad Jeanette can be here to share it with us. We're also glad the king and prince don't leave until Sunday for their Phoenix trip so they can enjoy it. We're also glad Grandma will be able to share the morning with us, and maybe even Aunt Kathi. What a great support system she has!

Yippee!!!

Jeanette is coming to visit today! Yippee!

Track News

The prince started track last week. He's doing shot put and javelin. He likes these field sports because there is very little running (read: real training) involved, so he hasn't yet pulled his "growing muscle"!

He had to sell $240 worth of coupon books. We had to pay for him to participate and for his warm-ups--which are really cool--I want some. The alternative would be raising our taxes to pay for these things. I'm good with it this way. I only have one kid in track. I don't want to pay for the 150 who went out this year!

First track meet is while he's in AZ with his dad and grandpa. He'll make the second one. I hope the weather's good!

Vegas Baby! Day Three, Final Post

Originally, in early Vegas, the casinos were built "down town". As the strip expanded, the big casinos got farther and farther away from down town. In an effort to revitalize this area, the big casinos that are still down there (Fitzgeralds, Four Queens, Bennions, Golden Nugget, The Plaza...) and the city created "The Freemont Experience". It is a huge dome of lights over a 3ish block area along Freemont Street, and at night they do a music/light show every 1/2-1 hour...depending the the season. On St. Patrick's Day we only saw one show though our parking ticket told us we had been down there more than 3 hours. They were advertising a show featuring Queen music, but the one we saw was music from the 60's. It was pretty entertaining--not Donny and Marie, but it'll do in a pinch--and if you make it to Vegas, it's worth a trip down town to check it out some evening. In an effort to upload the photos (which were bigger than the other Vegas photos) I had to make them smaller and not download as many. I hope I chose the best ones!

And this concludes our Vegas trip. The next morning Shelley had to leave pretty early (10:00) by Vegas standards, Mom left around 11:00, and Mary Beth and I went over to another hotel--looking for cheap poker--for a couple of hours before we too had to leave our happy place! But there's always next time...Let's start planning now!

Vegas Baby! Day Three, Part two

After a morning of parades, M&M World, star sightings, and hanging out by the pool--in was beautiful and in the mid 70*s--we headed to the Flamingo for our Donny and Marie show. Shelley had her photo taken with Donny as soon as we waked in. She's an Osmond stalker.

But alas, it turned out to be a sad afternoon when we found out Donny and Marie had canceled their show for the evening! Shelley HATES Vegas and really only agreed to go in a moment of weakness when the Osmonds were promised to her. We weren't sure how she would handle the news, but she seemed to be okay. There were no breakdowns in the middle of the casino or anything, so off we went to MARGARITAVILLE to let the healing begin.

And heal we did. Delicious dinner. Some of us sampled the world-famous margaritas. Delicious!

We tossed around several options for shows to replace Donny and Marie, but let's face it....there is NO replacing Donny and Marie. So we decided to go back downtown to play a little more Texas Hold Em and celebrate St. Patrick's day with all the people from Kentucky.

How do we know they were from Kentucky? Well...we don't really. They could have been from Arkansas. All I know is there was a group of them, and they were sporting mullets and missing teeth. Mary Beth was quick to point out that instead of a trip to Vegas, perhaps they should have scheduled a trip to their dentist to get some teeth!!!

We saw this guy too...he would pour alcohol right down your throat for FREE if you walked up to him and bent your head back. No. We didn't. Half of Vegas had already had that thing in their mouths!!! Please. We do have our standards!

While Mary Beth, Shelley, and I all lost a little money playing poker, Mom was over at a keno machine WINNING--she does that a lot, and it sort of gets annoying. But then she'll make it right by buying us slushy drinks so...Notice how tightly we are all holding ours. Don't want the mullet people to try to snatch them!


As you can see, we are enthralled with something. I'm saving the pictures of just what that something is for tomorrow. Come back. It'll be the last Vegas photo installment!

Oops--Forgot This One

Oops, sorry Shelley. I forgot this one in all my Edward-mania. Or maybe I just couldn't take another woman moving in on my man! You do look pretty cute, but the look on Edward's face says, "Hurry up and take the picture so I can be with you instead of your sister."

Vegas Baby! Day Three, Part one

You know the old saying, "Everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's Day"? That certainly seemed to be true in Vegas. There were tons of people dressed in green--including everyone in our party. One of the bars at NYNY is called "Nine Fine Irishmen" so this hotel really had the party going on. In the morning, as we headed to M&M World to shop, this Irish parade was going on. Complete with bag pipes and members of the Las Vegas Fire Department, it was pretty fun. Mom was the big "winner" as she's the only one who got a cool shamrock necklace they were handing out as they were walking by. Were they waiting to hand them out to kids? There weren't many kids in Vegas this trip. They were in SCHOOL!!!!

There was much speculation about what they might be wearing under these kilts. Mary Beth said the U.S. Marshall that she works for goes commando when he wears his. YUCK!

We walked over to M&M World so I could pick up some M&Ms in Skyview Falcons colors--I'm cool like that--and who should we run into, but my man, Edward, from Twilight. Now, you'll see Mary Beth trying to hone in on my man, but here's how you'll know he was working his secret vampire powers on me: it would appear from this photo that I am wearing a yellow t-shirt. That is not true. As you'll see in all remaining photos of me taken on this day, my shirt is WHITE. But only in the photos with Edward does it look YELLOW. So you see...Edward liked ME best!!!

And later we ran into the card-board version of him. No yellow shirt. I'm just saying...

A couple more posts and you'll have the highlights of the trip...or at least the ones that have photo representation. Thanks to Shelley for being the trip photographer. You're the best!

A note about M&M World--one of the cool things about it, besides all the fun memorabilia, is the entire wall of M&M dispensers. Each color is represented, and you can fill your bag with whatever colors you choose--in plain or peanut. How cool is that?

Vegas Baby! Day Two

Day Two found us headed downtown to Freemont Street and Bennions to learn Texas Hold 'Em. Actually, Mary Beth wanted to learn. We were along for the ride. She missed the lesson so when we found this virtual game, we all sat down and learned. This is a little easier version of the real thing. Betting is limited, and the pace is slower. We had a great time! Check out our poker faces there!

After lots of fun downtown, we headed to the Venitian/Pallazo for the evening. It's Spring Break in Vegas, and Mary Beth MADE us do Jello-shots--at a food court, no less. Did I mention it's VEGAS BABY!!!

After the shots and some slushy drinks, we headed to the evening's show--Jersey Boys. The king and I saw it last year. It is one of the BEST shows EVER!!! I love it. It's the music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, plus the story of their rise and fall. It's sooooooo good. Everyone should see it!

The show was followed by dinner at the Grand Lux Cafe, which is the same menu/chefs as The Cheesecake Factory. Here's what's left of some of our cheesecake once we remembered that we were supposed to take a photo of it for Shelley's friend. YUM-O!

Good times on a Tuesday in Vegas!

Oh, and check out our beads. Aren't they beautiful? They were free down on Freemont Street, but we don't recommend using the bathroom that goes with the casino that hands them out! Yikes!

Vegas Baby! Day One

We arrived in Vegas Sunday night. We stayed at NYNY Hotel/Casino. I love it.

Monday we headed to one of the outlet malls and shopped 'til we dropped. Really. Time flew and before we knew it, it was after 5 PM and we had a trunk full of goodies.


My mom and I, vamping at Claires. You can try them on and not buy. These were probably the only things we didn't buy! Check out the head piece on Mom!

I'm not really sure what the conversation was, but whatever it was, Mary Beth was feeling very strongly about something, and I was listening intently! That's why we're such good friends.

After the shopping we headed to the Mirage to see LOVE. It was really, really good. Loved all the Beatles music. We had dinner at a Rodizio Grill, compliments of my mom. We ate and ate and ate. It's a carnivore's dream!!! Thanks Mom.

207

The princess' cell phone died while I was in Vegas. They sent us a new one, and she and I went in today to have her data transferred to the new phone. It takes a VERY long time to transfer 207 photos from one phone to another. The phone gal suggested we run some errands and come back! So we went to McDonald's for a soda and to the library to return a book. When we got back it STILL wasn't done, but it was close! Phew, now she has a working phone again. It was kind of like a part of her died without her phone! :)

An Irish Blessing this St. Patrick's Day

May you have:

A world of wishes at your command.

God and his angels close at hand.

Friends and family their love impart.

And Irish blessings in you heart.

Compromise

These are my shoes, cluttered in the entry from the garage. Every weekend the king sweeps the floor and puts this pile of shoes back in my closet. He doesn't complain. He doesn't ask me to put them away. He just does it.

The kids put their shoes in their rooms. The king leaves his out in the garage. I leave mine here.

It's all about compromise. I do not agree with taking our shoes off when we come in the house. But I do it because it makes the king happy. He takes care of the floors so I am willing to do this for him even though I think his possessions own him instead of the other way around.

This is why we've been married for 17 years. Compromise. Shoes. Carpets. Compromise.

And now I'm going to Vegas with the girls which is another reason we've been married 17 years. Separate trips on occasion. He's a good man.

The Mask

The prince made this cool mask in art. First of all, they made much better masks in 5th grade, but I guess in high school you're only allowed to use construction paper. Anyway...I asked him to model it, and he said, "No way." So here is the princess.

I told her she looked like an African Princess.

That's when the prince had to correct me,

and model the mask himself.

"MOM! That's not an African mask. It's the drummer from KISS."

SOORRRRYYYYYY!!!

My mistake.

It's been awhile since I left the 1970's!

But now that you mention it...

26 Hours and Counting

In 26 hours I should be at the airport! Can't WAIT!

Survior Update

Don't read if you haven't watched it!







I can't believe they didn't send James home.


I can't believe the Heroes keep losing.


I can't believe they didn't eat the chocolate Jeff offered.


I love chocolate, but looking at all that chocolate on that table made me sick.


I can't WAIT for the Boston Rob/Russel showdown!


And while we're on the subject of reality TV...Jeff and Jordan dodged a bullet on the Amazing Race. We'll see if they can dig out of that mess on Sunday. Oh no, wait. You all will have to watch it and let me know. I'll be headed to LAS VEGAS Sunday night!!!

By the way, no Survivor this Thursday. It's on in two weeks on WEDNESDAY! (Silly college basketball.)

And on a lighter school note:

The king sent me this joke the other day--at least I hope it was a joke!

According to a news report, a certain private school in Washington was recently faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. After they put on their lipstick they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints. Every night the maintenance man would remove them and the next day the girls would put them back.Finally the principal decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night (you can just imagine the yawns from the little princesses).To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required. He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it.Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.There are teachers.... and then there are educators.

School Politics

I am so NOT into politics of any kind. I have opinions, but I keep them to myself. I don't get worked up. I don't argue with people who do. If you're talking politics to me and I'm smiling and nodding, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree. It just means I'm listening.


That's politics in general. As far as the politics of funding education and the necessity or not of testing goes, I have voiced an opinion from time to time. I'm more connected and have a vested interest here. Still, I'm more apt to smile and nod on this topic too.


This brings us to the hub-bub surrounding the Rhode Island school that fired all of it's teachers. I won't go into detail on the story itself. It's been all over the news. And if you missed it, here's a link to a CNN article.


http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/24/rhode.island.teachers/index.html



This really became a battle between the state of Rhode Island and the teacher's union, and I'm staying out of ANY comments on that!!! In the end, students lose.


The following is a link to an article written in response to the Rhode Island firings. The article is slanted. I admit that. And I don't agree with everything in it. But here it is if you are interested.



http://www.salon.com/life/education/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2010/03/05/teacher_firings


What I do agree with is the end of the article, and this is worth reading:


"Yet all the enthusiasm to revamp education has created a frenzy. Real review takes effort and collaboration. Education isn't like an episode of"Extreme Makeover." You can't know anything of the soul of a school by looking at letters and numbers on a chart. And you can't bulldoze a system and call it fixed."



Amen.


Now, one more thing. This week the governors of all 50 states met with the President and agreed to adopt national standards (that the president's committee had come up with ) for students in k-12 in reading and math. I'm not opposed to national standards because it levels the playing field. Right now each state designs it's own tests that are then reported to the federal government.


The national standards don't scare me either because in looking at them, they look to be in line with much of what our state is already doing and when we are doing it. For example, 3rd graders should read and comprehend Charlotte's Web. Our 3rd graders dissect Helen Keller so I'm pretty sure they can take on Charlotte. Fifth graders would need to understand the Pythagorean Theory (a squared plus b squared equals c squared). At our school, depending on how far into the computer math program they get, our 5th graders are exposed to the theory. Teaching it more thoroughly could be easily done. High school freshman would be required to read and comprehend The Iliad and The Great Gatsby. The Iliad is already on the freshman reading list at the prince's school. He's read it and To Kill a Mockingbird and is currently trudging through Romeo and Juliette. So we've got this!!!


What's kind of weird to me is that, in order to get the 4 BILLION dollars the president is promising in education money, schools must adapt these new standards. Which begs the question: does the president not care about the kids in the states that don't adopt the standards? Are those children being left behind? All but 2 states agreed to adopt the standards. One of the states that didn't was Texas, and the governor of Texas said, "Texans know best how to educate their children." There is some irony in this since it was President Bush--from Texas--who started this whole testing/standards ballgame.



Still, I give Texas a hand for not buying into the politics. I don't doubt that money will talk down the road, and they'll join the other 48 states. In the meantime I'm reminiscent of when the government tied highway funding to speed limits. Montana said, "No thanks. Keep your money. We'll keep speeding down the highway." Eventually the money was necessary and we too had ourselves a "reasonable" speed limit on our highways!



Am I rambling? Probably. In my brain this all ties together, and if you're really good at reading between the lines, you know what I'm saying. If you know me well then you know what I meant to say. For the rest of you, thanks for letting me rant a little!

Falcons Update

Skyview got trampled on yesterday but played today in a loser-out game. They won so will play tomorrow. If they win tomorrow during the day, they'll play tomorrow night in the consolation game. Go Falcons!

Go Falcons!

For the first time in many years, all three local boys basketball teams are in the state championship. We're rooting for the Falcons, of course. I'll keep you posted.

Big City

We must be living in the big city now. On the way to work I saw two different taxi cabs and they each had a passenger!

Yummy!

When I borrowed Grandma's camera the other day I took the SD card home and loaded it onto my camera. Her Hawaii photos from October were on her card and ended up on my computer too. I was particularly attracted to this one! ;) I wonder if this is Grandma's new boyfriend. Has she been holding out on us? I might need to cancel my trip to Vegas and head to Hawaii!

The Wailers Concert

These are photos the prince took the other night when he attended The Wailers concert. Skunk Boy is very into Reggae music, so the prince likes it too. The Wailers are the band that backed up Bob Marley before he died. They tour and play Marley music along with other Reggae music. It's kind of like when the Jordanairs (Elvis' band) still tour. The prince and his friends had a good time and even met one of the members though they did admit he was a little "creepy". When I asked what that meant they said he was kind of like the carnies at the fair. YUCK.

The Help Part 2

I just read that Steven Spielberg's Dreamworks Company has purchased the movie rights to The Help. They are speculating on casting right now. Can any movie do the book justice?

Volley Ball

The princess added to her already busy schedule by signing up for volleyball a few weeks ago. She really enjoys it, and if it didn't conflict so much with dance, she might really take to it, but in having to choose, she chooses dance. Still she's learned a lot and picked up some new skills. Last night was the first of her two games. (It's hard to find teams to play against when we're one of only a few teams in the area with a middle school concept. Most 6th graders don't get the chance to play this way locally.) But they played against the home school team--and were beat mightily by them too for most of the games. Still it was a great learning experience. But don't tell the princess that. She hates to lose!

Warming up.

Set.



"I've got this."

Serving.

Huddle up.

"Mine!"

Her best skill may be in serving.

Twice she served 5 unanswered points.

Check out her serve face.

Lips pressed firmly together.

And again.

And again!

Love this girl.

A special thanks to Grandma who saved my bacon. I forgot my camera at home yesterday and didn't have time to run back before the game. Grandma showed up with hers so all was good. And the king was even able to stop by for a bit while working. I'll miss next week's game because of my little jaunt to Vegas. Her dad will be there to cheer her on though.