Precious

Before I  run out to start the spring yard-clean-up today (which must be very similar to Native American's "Rain Dance" because it never fails that once I start, so does the rain), I thought I'd take a moment to share a few 'Precious' images with you.

Precious #1:
Our 1997 Camry was nicknamed "Precious" by its previous owner (a friend of mine).  All the detailed maintenance records for the Camry are in our desk drawer, in a file marked simply marked as "Precious".  Tanya had a few questions about that file when she first stumbled across it one day.

Anyway, I'm pleased to announce that Precious reached 200,000 miles this week.  Double Thumbs Up to Precious for always being reliable... we haven't had a single mechanical problem with her.  I don't blame her for the tire blowout from a few months ago of course.  Even after the little collision that killed her evil stepbrother (Mr. 98 Camry, on the right), she's been as trustworthy as she was on day #1.


Precious #2:
A few weeks ago we had to have our precious siamese cat put down.  She'd been having kidney trouble for about six months and finally the time had come where it was clear she wasn't feeling up to the weather.  We miss you Daisy!

Thank you for being my BFF and standing up to the ornamental dogs with me.  Guess I'm on my own now.  (FWIW, Daisy, the bird didn't get fed for a few days while Tanya was sick, but they're both doing fine now).


Precious #3:
While Tanya was sick (and while I was trying my best to take care of her without getting myself sick), someone had to bring her meals to her in bed.
Insisting that she was "Starvin' Marvin", we whipped up a batch of waffles, scrambled eggs and strawberries for her, and arranged it all with care.
Upon delivery, T had completely konked out.  DOH!


A few days later, we decided to send her some her another dish of food.  This was less colorful, but had the requested ingredients... and she stayed awake for delivery.


That's all for now.  We'll be at a last-chance effort to qualify for Gymnastics Level 5 Sectionals on Sunday, so wish us (Mikayla) luck!

~E

Quote Of The Day

If you've been keeping up with us in real life, you'd know that we've had the flu going around our house for... oh, about the last 13 days or so.

It started out with Mikayla developing some troubling symptoms about two weeks ago.  She managed pretty well and somehow avoided a fever, escaping with a lingering cough and rolling her eyes everytime I ask her to do something.

From there it went downhill fast.  Alexia missed four days of school and a weekend, but she was nice enough to share her condition with Tanya.  Such rewards for being the loving mother.  Tanya's been confined to bed for about a week now, but she's recently become mobile again and was spotted once in the kitchen, once in the office and twice resting at the top of the stairs.  So, it seems like she's finally on the way to recovery.

It's tough to be that sick... and I'm sure she's plenty tired of resting (hey, that's almost a joke!).

So, while I was at work today, deep into programming a complex report that would solve my problem of the day, my cell phone rings.

It was Tanya.  She sounded almost like her usual un-flu self.  She also sounded annoyed and frustrated.  Here is how our short conversation went:

E:  Hello?
T:  (Sighs)  Hi.  I can't get on the internet.
E:  Why not?
T:  I don't know.  The computer just won't open facebook.  I've tried twice.
E:  Did you shut it down and restart it?
... here is the quote of the day....:
T:  No!  I don't have time for that!

She must have a skewed sense of 'busy' with her 7 day flu-cation.

Somehow, knock on wood, I've escaped from the flu-nami, so far.  Now that everyone is almost better, I expect my "Office futon-cation" may be nearing an end.

~E

Flu-nami

Only a little bit like the recent tragic tsunami that struck Japan, our household has been struck by the flu.

We're down for the count.

Well, T and A are down for the count.

M started the whole thing, but luckily had a much less severe strain of it that didn't involve a fever.

So far, I've managed to fight off whatever it is that's knocking everyone else out (well, so far anyway, knock on wood, praise the Lord).

Alexia missed three days of school last week (one of which was a field trip she really wanted to go on -- outdoors and in the rain). Tanya stayed with Lex on the first day and I played Work-From-Home/Dr. Dad on Thursday and Friday.

While on my work-from-home Lunch Break, Alexia and I played board games.

I wonder how old she'll be before she stops making me play this one:

It says Ages 5 and up... so it might be a while.  At least she's stopped asking to play the Princess game that involved wearing a jeweled crown and clip-on earings.

Lex seemed to be on the path to recovery on Friday, but while I was out galavanting around the mountains on Saturday, she followed Tanya and took a downhill turn for the worse.

Wish our household a speedy recovery... and for heaven's sake, someone please get Tanya a grape popsicle!!!

~E

Check Back Here During Summer

When it's 90 degrees out this summer and everyone is crying about the lack of air conditioning, be sure to come back and relive the good old days of winter.

Yeah, remember? We DO get snow here.





The funny 'V' between the tire tracks in our driveway is where the bottom of the car pushed all the snow out of the way after my stunt driver attempt to get it into the driveway.

Check back later this week for some videos of Alexia in her first 'away' Level 3 gymnastics meet that we attended in Southcenter yesterday.

~E

16 in 11

It's the big snow storm of 2011.

The weather person warned that we might get some snow. You know... 2 to 4 inches or so.

Well, we are up to 16 inches and it's still coming down fast!

There was a trace on the ground this morning and school was starting on time.

So, we dropped Mikayla off at school and Alexia headed out to the bus stop with friends while Tanya and I headed off to work.

Alexia's bus was in an accident (before she was picked up) and then school was canceled.

The kids played with friends all day while the snow continued to fall.

My 30 minute drive home took about an hour and a half. Our road was gridlocked with stranded cars. Eventually I just parked it along side the road and walked the last third of a mile to the house.

Here is the current view out the back door:

You can see how it's piled up on the playhouse roof but you can also see the depth piling up on the trampoline.

There is more than 16 inches of untouched snow on the back deck. And it's still coming down fast.

After the traffic seemed to taper off, I hiked back down to the car and drove it home without any trouble.

Well, there was a little excitement as I hit the bank of powder that is hiding our driveway. The snow depth is higher than my bumper. The impact, even at low speed, sent an explosion of powder up into the air just like you'd see in a car commercial. (Take that all you stunt driver's on closed courses... I DID try this at home and I rocked it!)

Suddenly, the increased weight of the snow being plowed and the reduction in speed left me stuck in my own driveway, partly blocking the path to get the other car out of the garage.

Time for a little shoveling... as soon as I extracted myself from the car. This was made more difficult because the snow was piled up above the bottom of the car door, requiring a little extra effort to force the door open as it pushed the snow away.

Eventually the car found its normal spot in the driveway (well, pretty close anyway).

Chances are high that we'll all be spending a 'family day' together on Thursday. That means three of us will be reading and playing and one of us will be working from home.

Maybe I'll get Tanya to give another shot at wearing snowshoes tomorrow. :)

~E

Exercise: On Demand!

My Bride found the Comcast On Demand Exercise videos and suckered me into the doing the '2 mile walk' video before dinner.

The TV lady repeating 'walk walk walk walk' sounded like 'wok wok wok wok'... made me want chinese food for dinner. Lucky for me, Pineapple Chicken was already in the oven.

Time went pretty fast as we did a good job of entertaining each other.

There were a couple valuable benefits from tonight's Fitness Bonding Time:

1) We got some exercise

2) We worked up an appetite

3) I successfully reminded T that "being graceful while dancing" is NOT in my DNA (excluding those dances in Red Square at WWU of course).

It's probably been 10 years since my last attempt at 'Dancing' (just ask T about the Swing Dancing attempt) and it will probably be another 10 years before any sort of dancing invitation floats my way. By then I'll be able to flash my AARP card and start complaining about my aching joints or bad knees.

4) Hey! How come in the years that we've had 'On Demand' TV no one bothered to mention that there is a whole section of outdoor shows in "The Ski Channel"? Heck, I'd tell you if there was a "4H" channel or a "We Heart Dogs" channel.



Anyway, we started a '10 week fitness challenge' at my work. It involves a certain amount of exercise at least five times a week. They claim that it's 10 weeks long because that is how long it takes to make something a habit.

They said the same thing last year when we did it for 10 weeks.

Since this is the second year for us doing this program I guess it must mean that we are in the habit of exercising 10 weeks a year.

GO TEAM!

~E