Hey Dude! Where's my car...?

Today Sam (my girlfriend who lives across the street from me) suggested we do a childcare trade. She had to go to the mall & I had to go to the grocery store. Here was my day:

10:30am - 12:30pm - I had 2 of her kids at my house, they all played great and created minimal mess.

1:15pm - Dropped my 4 kids off at her house and headed to Fred Meyer (grocery store)

1:30pm - Got gas at Costco because I realized my gas gauge was BELOW the "E" and the red line.

1:45pm - Parked at Fred Meyer. I got a great parking spot right out front of the doors where the Salvation Army bell ringer was standing, only 3 spaces from the front of the parking row!

1:45pm - 2:55pm - Did all of my Christmas dinner shopping -without four kids in tow- while leisurely sipping a nonfat caramel macchiatto. Happily got wished a politically incorrect "Merry Christmas" by 3 different people in the store!

2:55pm - Walked out to where I parked the car and couldn't find it. Stopped to think "The row right in front of the store entrance, third stall from the front. Yep, there is the Salvation Army bell ringer directly behind the row." Confused, I walked up and down several different rows pushing the alarm clicker button, but heard nothing. Then it suddenly dawned on me: MY CAR HAS BEEN STOLEN!!!!!!!!!!! My brain started swirling - "What do I do?!?!"

3:10pm - I phoned Sam who had my kids and told her what was happening. Then I phoned my husband. By this time I was SOBBING! He told me to call the police "But I don't even know the license plate number!!!" I asked him to come to the store and help me and wanted him to call the police for me when he got there. He told me to find the store manager to see how they could help.

3:15pm - I called Jen crying while I waited for Eric to arrive. Then (still crying) I called Claire, who was on Christmas vacation in CA. visiting family.

3:18pm - For a brief moment I looked around and thought "WAIT! Maybe it's a joke and I'm being ambushed by a reality show that is giving me a NEW van!!!" Ok, no camera crews - wishful thinking, back to crying.

3:20pm - I went back into the store and found the manager. He had me call the police and then talk to his loss prevention director who came outside with me to see where the van was parked. He said they had surveillance cameras that might have picked something up. Poor guy - I was totally crying all over the place.

3:30pm - Eric arrives and comes walking up to where the loss prevention guy and I are standing in the parking lot. Then I REALLY start sobbing "What kind of person steals your van 4 days before Christmas?! I had 14 Christmas cards in the front seat that I had grabbed out of the mailbox on my way to the store - and now I'll NEVER BE ABLE TO HANG THEM UP IN THE HOUSE!!! *SOB* All of our car seats are gone and we have a $500 deductible. We don't even have $500!!!!! What are we going to do?!?!" *SOB! SOB!*

3:35pm - Eric says, "I already reported it to the insurance company, it's going to be okay. Let's go put the groceries in MY van while we wait for the police to show up." We start walking over to his van (on the other side of the parking lot) and when we get there, I notice that it is parked nose to nose with a gold van that looks just like ours. Then I notice that it is in the third stall from the front of the row. Eric looks at me suspiciously, "Hit the clicker." I cringe and reach into my pocket: "BEEP-BEEP!" and the locks pop up in the van in front of us!!

OH. MY. GOODNESS.

I had come in one store entrance and gone out the other and not even realized it.

Eric immediately busts into hysterical laughter.

I. AM. AN. IDIOT.

I had to slink back into that store and announce to the customer service desk (that I had SOBBED all over only minutes before) that my car was NOT stolen - but that I was too stupid to remember where I had parked the car! The loss prevention guy was already in the back room starting to view the 70 minutes of surveillance tape of the parking lot.

I apologized profusely and the customer service lady just looked at me with the utmost pity and said "That's okay honey, it's Christmas time!" She said she'd contact the police to let them know we had found the van.

In my defense, the Salvation Army bell ringer was ringing his bell in front of the entrance that I had originally gone in but then he was at the (now I realize - OTHER) entrance when I came out. Apparently, he had some involvement in this plot to make me crazy!

My husband called back our insurance company and the guy just howled with laughter! "You aren't going to ever let her live this down are you?!"

"NO WAY!!" answered my sweet husband...

The month in review...

Why yes, I have been meaning to write for OVER a month now! Life as been running at 1000mph since we returned from Maui! I had all of these great and hilarious stories to write about but I realize now that I will NEVER catch up if I stick to my obsessive/compulsive need to write things in chronological order. So, I think I'll bullet point and picture post to catch up:

• Returned from Maui and found that if you are a week behind on your life when you leave for vacation...you will come back and be 2 weeks behind on everything in your life!
  
  


• Had our dear friends over for Thanksgiving. Fact #1 - the heart-healthy websites that state mashed cauliflower are a great healthy alternative to mashed potatoes are lying! We had mashed gloppy goo. Ick. Fact #2 - You can eat whatever you want on Thanksgiving and not gain an ounce IF you and your equally deranged girlfriend decide to stay up ALL NIGHT to go Black Friday shopping from 3am - 10am. Talk about calories burned!! [I REALLY will have to write about that shopping experience!]

Here we are at the mall at 4am!! It was like the running of the bulls!!

• If you wrestle near the sharp corner of an entertainment center too many times, someone will eventually get hurt. Zane cracked his head open. After my initial panic when I actually screamed "Oh my goodness - your brains are falling out of the back of your head!" I realized his brains were still intact and safely tucked away behind his skull. I ended up gluing him back together with superglue. The hardest part was trying to cut his hair away with him crying without stabbing him in his open wound. I am SO not cut out for a career in nursing!!! Look away if you have a weak stomach - seriously!

Told ya!

• We took the kids down to Ocean Shores for a few days right after Thanksgiving. Freezing but fun! I'm glad we went when we did. Exactly one week later it was hit with over 100mph winds during our big storm/flood.
  
  


• I spent the next few days after our trip, planning/decorating/putting on an all-church talent show and Christmas dinner. I spent 12-14 hours days at the church - but in the end it was all worth it! The decorations were beautiful! I will post video soon of my talent show acts.

Here are the decorations. The hanging stars took HOURS to make but are beautiful!

Here is a photo of my all girl band "The Go-Go's". I rewrote the words of their song "Vacation" to "Salvation". Very fun!!! I think I want to be in a band now...

Sadly, I had forgotten my tank top at home so I couldn't complete my flashdance look and had to wear my long sleeve shirt under my cut off sweatshirt.

• Decorated the Christmas tree and nobody could reach to get the star on top. I climbed onto the bench in our bay window and tried to hoist Maisie up with the star. I lost my balance and we ALMOST fell on top of the tree.

Then I tried a kitchen stool...

• Dach has had a little too much "Nacho Libre" in his life lately...

• This is what happens when I try to make a gingerbread house. It ended up being a "Man vs. Wild" lean-to:

• Here's Jen's (she won the contest):

(I took this when It was only partly done.)

• I finally hit the "lost 50 lbs" mark this week! YAY!! A friend was kind enough to give me a box of See's candies. (Which I love!) I realized by the time I took a little bite out of each on e to see what the flavors were...I had already reached a serving size!

I don't know if you can tell - but they all have a nibble out of them. I feel that I'm doing the family a favor by enlightening them as to what all of the flavors are. Hubby disagrees.

Ok - I have a haircut appt in less than an hour so I have to scoot. Maybe my New Year's resolution will be to write more consistently...

Maui how do I miss thee, part 2 (Pearl Harbor)

The alarm went off at 4:15am. It's disturbing to even type that. [Remember, you're looking at someone who doesn't let her kids get up before 8am because anything before 8am is still considered "the middle of the night".] We had to check out of the hotel, stop for gas, return the rental car and shuttle on over to the airport. Supposedly, all before 5:30am. *shudder*

How to make a smart-mouth comedianne who has had 3 hours of sleep seriously agitated:

Interrogate her with agricultural transport questions. (Apparently they frown on packing pineapples in your suitcase.) Then make her strip off her shoes, belt, watch, and any accessories that may have at one time been in the same room with something metal. (Gee thank goodness I wasn't wearing sparkle body spray - the machine would've had an all out seizure.) "Ma'am, could you please step into this porta-shower and exfoliate yourself with this here official TSA loofah before proceeding through security?"

Dear Al-Queda,

You are seriously pissing me off now.

Signed,

One Fed Up Accessory-less Infidel

Gee, thank goodness there haven't been any reports of a "bra-bomber" or we'd really be in for a treat at the security checkpoint! "Free mamogram with all flights!" SHEESH!

I'm so rattled by the time I get through security. Gee, do you think that Starbucks not 20 feet on the other side of security is some sort of accident?

And speaking of - might I just take this opportunity to express my annoyance with the Maui airport Starbucks. After ordering $10 worth of beverages, I asked for a glass of ice water. "That'll be an extra $1.35 for the cup." Seriously. I just paid you for $10 worth of caffeinated beverages that are going to dehydrate me and then I am going to step onto a plane that is going to further dehydrate me and you won't give me water without charging me $1.35 for a .25 cent cup?? WOW! "Hey Starbucks - think about it: you sell caffeinated beverages in an airport. Dontcha think that someone might require a glass of water at some point??" I didn't realize natural resources were that expensive in Maui - perhaps you'd like to also charge me for a napkin? Or perhaps you could charge me extra for my receipt, oh wait - that would take up more receipt paper...

I wouldn't even DARE to calculate the THOUSANDS of dollars we have spent at Starbucks over the past 10 years. Never mind the fact that we just spent a total of $115 at Starbucks in the span of 6 days.

aside[Now, don't judge me yet - I know that sounds like an absurd amount to spend at Starbucks in 6 days, but we actually budgeted in getting lattes every morning of the trip, and we ate sandwiches there, and we bought several Maui emblazoned travel mugs for gifts there. And we had a giftcard for part of it.] End aside

Anyway, all they could give me for free was a 5 ounce dixie cup of water. And they didn't even put ice in it - just lukewarm tap water. Wow, that would NEVER happen in Seattle. EVER.

So, the rest of the day was better.

We caught our flight to Honolulu (where we had a 7hr and 15min layover). We were going to spend the day at Pearl Harbor so we caught a shuttle to a car rental place and got a car for a few hrs since I had found out it was $30 to catch a cab one-way to Pearl Harbor and it only ended up costing $18 to rent a car for the day!

Pearl Harbor was amazing. We took a ferry out to the memorial for the Arizona (the ship that was sunk by the Japanese bombers entombing over 900 soldiers. We also bought tickets to go aboard the U.S.S. Bowfin submarine and the U.S.S. Missouri ship (where the Japanese signed their surrender). It was very interesting. Here are some pics:

Eric on the U.S.S. Bowfin Submarine.

Me driving the sub "DIVE! DIVE! DIVE!"

"We all live in a yellow silverish-grey submarine..."

Eric manning the guns.

Then we headed over to the Battleship U.S.S.Missouri...

The ship was enormous.

"This is your captain speaking..."

The Arizona Memorial is very sobering. I didn't get any picture of the outside of the memorial (cause I'm a ding-dong) but here is one of the inside. There is a giant wall with the name of all 1,177 crew members who died that day:

Here is one looking into the water from it. You can see the ship just under the water (some of the parts actually stick up out of the water). See the oil on the surface? We kept watching little bubbles of oil come out of the ship and surface. Apparently it leaks up to 1-2 pints of oil a day. Even after 65 years.

We spent about 4 hours at Pearl Harbor and headed back to the airport for our strip search to head back through security.

We arrived back in Seattle around 9:45 and after making the rounds to pick up all of our sleeping children, we got home somewhere around Midnight.

It was a great trip - we had a ton of fun, thoroughly relaxed, and got VERY tan or shall I say "deliciously dark"? *Thank you Banana Boat tanning oil!*

See, look how dark Eric is:

Isn't he a cutie?! *sighs dreamily*

Maui, how do I miss thee? Let me count the ways...

Wow, I am still in shellshock. Did you know that you can be standing in 87 degree Maui enjoying the scenery and just a few hours later be standing in 43 degree polar-cap Seattle argueing with small children just a few hours later?? Now you do. Tuck that one away for future use!

Well, it's been -QUITE- a whacked-out week since I returned but let's start with the end of the trip shall we? Our last day in Maui was A-MA-ZING, with a capital ZING! We got up and went to an 8am church service in this amazing building and then by 9:30am we were DONE with church for the day! That's a giant WOW for us since Eric has to be at church on Sunday mornings at around 7:30am and we never get out of there until close to 2pm!

We hit Starbucks after church and went on a drive to explore a little town called Paia on the northern side of the island. It wasn't quite as exciting as we thought it would be. A tiny little surfer town with surfer shops interspersed with high-end boutiques. It was like Bill & Ted's Excellent Rodeo Drive Adventure.

We headed back over to the west side of the island and thought we'd try Kaanapali Beach. We hit Burger King drive through on the way and may I ask - what is wrong with this picture??

Hint: Look at the sign in the window.

Dude - they serve SPAM. As in...SPAM. W.O.W. Yeah, it's on the menu right between Chicken Gizzards and Ham Hocks. Seriously folks, I'm speechless on this one. *insert stunned silence*

Moving right along...

We spent the day on Kaanapali Beach just maxin' and relaxin'. Since it was day 4 of the trip I had made the move from sunblock to sunscreen to dark tanning oil. This is what the bottle says on it, "...an intoxicating moisturizing concoction that will leave skin silky smooth and deliciously dark." *wow, I'll take a dozen!*

We were there for several hours and I actually fell asleep on the beach for almost one of those hours. For dinner, we went to this little oceanside restaurant called "The Mixed Plate". We sat in their outdoor seating section, just a few feet from the beach and watched the sunset while we ate. WOW.

Here's a pic of us at sunset:

Not the best photo of us but it's the only one of us at sunset. *I HATE handing my camera over to strangers "Can I see your credentials? Can you stand on that table so you can get us, the sunset AND the beach in the shot? Can you just take 20 shots to be sure...?"

Afterwards we went out for frozen yogurt and walked around an open-air market.

What. A. Way. To. Spend. A. Sunday.

"Lord? The whole "rest on the Sabbath" commandment? I have so got it COVERED!!"

Sadly, we had to pack up that night and catch a 6:25am flight the next morning. Tip of the day: don't stay up till 1am if you have a 6:25am flight...

Hmn, ok I actually have lots of photos for the next day. Let's make that a separate entry...

"I get knocked down, but I get up again..."

Go ahead, sing it. I'll wait...



-are you done?-



Ok then. Today (Saturday) we got up and made our morning trek to ten bucks Starbucks. We then headed down to our MOST FAVORITE beach: MAKENA BEACH! On the way I noticed a restaurant "2 fish tacos w/mango salsa for $7.95" and made a note to myself eat dinner at "Alexander's Fish".



We spent the whole day at Makena. It is an amazing beach with HUGE waves which is perfect for body surfing -OR- in my case getting the crap kicked out of you in front of a large studio audience.



I watched Eric for a while and took pics of him body surfing and wave jumping. He kept wanting me to come in the water to play. I avoided it for as long as possible because I just HATE the "sand everywhere" factor, but I finally relented.



I wasn't in the water two minutes - I SWEAR it was TWO good minutes - before this monster wave hit (Hubby said it was about 5-8 feet?). Unfortunately, I was standing right at the break point. If you've ever been surfing - you are probably cringing right now. Did I dive into the wave like a good surfer girl? Ah, no. I panicked and just stood there.



Knocked. On. My. Butt.



That thing knocked me back so hard that I flipped completely over backwards and tumbled a couple of times up the beach. Another wave crashed in right after it, so I couldn't get my head above water. I landed face down on the beach with my swimsuit not competely on. *ahem* I was GASPING for air and fighting back tears. Eric was frantically motioning at me and "whisper yelling" "YOUR SWIMSUIT!! FIX YOUR SWIMSUIT!!!" Um yeah - I'll get right on it, as soon as I make sure I'm still A.L.I.V.E.!!!



Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd, that concludes today's body surfing lesson.



That was MORE than enough for me *oh great respecter of the mighty ocean* and I was back to sunbathing. Eric played in the water for HOURS. We didn't leave the beach till around 5pm.



Eric wanted Maui Taco for dinner and I wanted Alexander's Fish Tacos. We got our respective take out and sat across the street from the beach watching the sunset.



After walking around some little shops, we decided it was time to head back to the hotel to wash all of the sand off. *read: remove large quantities of sand from places it should never come near* Care to see the amount of sand that I dumped out of my swimsuit into the garbage? I thought you might!









You could build a sandcastle from the amount of sand living in my swimsuit.



Then, when I was taking a shower trying to scrub the "super-glue-like-consistency-sand" off my body I slipped in the shower, SCREAMED and landed with a thud. Hubby came running *my hero* to find me lying in a pool of sandy water nursing my wounds. I bashed my right hand on the side of the tub *which is still hurting*. Sheesh - what is up with me and the water today? Perhaps our next vacation will be in a desert environment...



Here are some pics from the day:



Before the "wave incident":









Here I am in front of the beach. Notice Eric in the background?









More in front of the beach See my groovy necklace?:











This wave crashing is comparable to the one that took me for a "ride":











I have video of Hubby wave jumping but it takes too long to upload to youtube, so I'll have to wait and do that when I get home. Eric's laptop battery died, so I'm stuck uploading this with idiot-MAC well, maybe it's the idiot browser "Safari". Anyway - don't expect paragraphs and I'm sure the formatting is out of whack.



I'll be steering clear of water if you need me...



HA!! I outsmarted the MAC with my keen knowledge of html code. Take that grasshopper!!

Tales from Maui...

Ahhhhhhh, smell that Hawaiian air! All is well here in Maui. I'm sitting poolside looking up at the palm trees as I type this...

Day 1 (Wednesday) -

Got up at the crack of dawn and caught a shuttle service to the airport [thank you N.B my A.C. for hooking us up with that!!] We flew all dang day, then sat in the Honolulu airport for 3 hours, then flew some more. We got into Maui around 4:15pm (6:15pm Seattle time).

We had a "fresh lei greeting" as part of our package:

We rented the car and got to the hotel around 5pm. So tired. We were quite concerned about what the hotel would be like since this was a rockin' cheap deal at a 1 star hotel - add to the fact that the reviews on it were "less than shining". But lo and behold - the hotel is fine. It's OLD, but it's fine - it's got that "I-was-built-in-the-60's-and-I'll-never-actually-look-clean-no-matter-how-hard-you-scrub-me" feel to it. But for the price - I can live with that. We went out to "Maui Taco" for dinner that night and came back to the hotel around 9pm. Eric says I passed out around 9:30pm. I was SO tired. I don't remember the last time I was that tired.

Unfortunately, my cell phone rang at 6:38am and we were unable to go back to sleep. Nice. I didn't answer it and the number didn't look familiar. But come on people - it was only 8:38am Seattle time. I don't know about you - but I don't call people's cell phones at 8:38am unless they are a CLOSE friend whom I KNOW will be awake. *shakes head*

Day 2 (Thursday) -

I started out the day with a venti non-fat iced caramel macchiato (as everyone should) and then we drove around the west side of the island. We stopped at the most romantic restaurant I've ever been to. It is a large open-air gazebo that is an oceanside restaurant. Beautiful. We sat and ate our brunch while we watched the waves crash and the palm trees sway. WOW! Here is a photo of us at our table:

We spent the rest of te afternoon at Napili Beach (just a couple of hundred yards north of the restaurant). I laid on the beach for 3 hours. *insert contented sigh* We ended up driving up to Kahului (the central north part of the island) to find dinner and found a mall. "What?! For me?!?!" We decided to go cheap and just find a place to eat at the mall. *bad choice* I liked the sound of chinese so we grabbed some food at Panda Express. Have you ever eaten there.......and not puked afterwards?? It was bad. All I could stomach was the orange chicken. I threw the rest in the garbage. The fried rice was SO foul!

I did score super cute Converse tennis shoes for $9.99! The are white lowtops with purple hibiscus flowers all over them. We were going to catch a movie - but were too tired. We just came back to the hotel and crashed.

Day 3 (Friday) -

Wow - are we lazy. We sauntered out of bed at 10:something. (That would be noon:something Seattle time!) We drove to a local Starbucks and then we spent most of the day (well, what was left of it) driving around and looking at stores. I got some great new sunglasses (my Dollar store ones were not cutting it for me) that (I think) make me look like a movie star. We decided we would drive down to the far south end of the island (Wailea) to check out this burger joint we had read about. We stopped at a beach to watch the sunset:

We drove around and around for about 45 minutes looking for this burger place and FINALLY I relented and let Eric ask someone for directions and we were told "Oh that went out of business about a month ago." By that time, I really wanted a cheeseburger so we went to this place called Cheeseburgerland. The burgers were the standard overpriced $10.95-$12.95 each - but the upselling was OB-NOX-IOUS!!! "Would you like a Mai Tai?!" "No, I'll have a Diet Coke." "Would you like that in a souvineer cup that has unlimited free refills?" "Do your regular cups have free refills?" "Yes." "Then NO - I don't want a souvineer cup for an additional $6.95!" Each burger description on the menu would end with "This would be great with a beer!" or "Pair this with a Mai Tai!" or "This burger goes great with a t-shirt!!" Then the kicker came when we ordered our burgers:

"Would you like to order fries with those?"



"THE BURGERS DON'T COME WITH FRIES?!?!?!"

"Nope. Would you like to order a side of fries?"

Gee, $4.95 later we got to have fries with our burgers!

"Would you like the extended warranty with your burger...??!!"

I had already stepped WAY out of my normal cheapness and ordered appetizers (coconut shrimp) because I had been craving it all week). So, $41 later...dinner is served. And sadly - it wasn't great. It was extremely sub-par.

Well, I would write more - but my laptop batery says I have 5 minutes of battery left. ACK!! No time for spell check! And I think this retarded MAC is going to post this without paragraphs. So sorry! I can't make it divide my text into paragraphs - even with html.

Ok well, ALOHA!!

Aloha!

Greetings from the Honolulu airport! We are here for a three hour layover on our way to Maui. Not long enough to leave the airport and do anything cool - but just long enough to be quite boring. Can't even go shopping because the airport prices are a little too jacked for me. The starbucks here charges $5.05 for a venti frappe - wow, I could feed all 4 of my kids lunch at a fast food joint for $5. I tried too get us bumped to an earlier connecting flight but they said it would be a $40 charge per person. "We'll just have a seat, thanks." The flight over from the mainland was pretty uneventful.

One nice thing was that each seat on the plane had a tv screen built into the back of it with on-demand movies, so if you had headphones - you could just plug them in and watch movies for free. Gotta love free! I watched "Hairspray" and then played a championship game of Bejeweled. Why yes I DID get the high score of the day, thank for caring! I felt pretty proud of that till I noticed that a couple of hours later, the guy in front of us was playing bejeweled and he beat my high score by about 4,000 points. I refrained from kicking his chair. Well, I am quite ready to board a plane and get out of this airport - but in the meantime I think I'll clean out my email inbox...

Party plans and cornucopia bread...

You know - this whole turn the clocks back thing is straight from satan himself. “What?!” you gasp in that annoying bewildered tone. "But you GAIN an hour of sleep!!!"

That's a lie: for starters - kids wake up at the same time every day. It doesn’t matter if the clock says it’s an hour earlier - they still get up. And secondly - going to bed at 2:30am instead of (really 3:30am) is no consolation. Especially when the kids get up at 7am instead of (really 8am). *insert triple latte*

Because my secret identity is “Last-minute-girl” I started working on the fliers for the church bulletin last night at 11 pm (really 12am). I am in charge of the all-church Christmas event (of COURSE I am) mainly because it was my brainchild a few years back. And if you want something done right….

So, I pulled a late-nighter creating fliers, posters, sign-up sheets, job description sheets, registration forms etc…

I lost track of how many shots of espresso I’ve had today. Three? Mnn, perhaps four. I got up in front of the church to make a big marketing push for people to sign up and come to the event. Apparently I did better than I thought, because we had about 125 sign up today. I threatened them with “Now you know - 2 years ago this was a sell-out event with standing room only and a waiting list!!” Nothing like creating a sense of urgency!

This year I am re-writing the lyrics of Devo’s “Whip It” to “Dip It” - sort of a chips & salsa song. Our family will be constructing DEVO hats and performing this - MUCH to my children’s dismay. I am also re-writing the lyrics to the Go-Go’s “Vacation”. I always wanted to be Belinda Carlise - so this ought to be fun!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, I saw this Thanksgiving recipe in a magazine and thought “Hey - I think I can make that!” It is a cornucopia made out of bread (refrigerated breadsticks actually). I was going to try to make it for Thanksgiving but thought a dry run might be a good idea. Last week, I had the perfect opportunity to test it out for a pumpkin party potluck.

Here is how it turned out:

I guess I never got pics of it in the platter with the crackers in it. These are the post-baking pics...

The foil inside is the foil mold that is used to shape it. I filled it with crackers and served it with dip although it would be great with some fruit in it. It turned out way better than I thought it would. It actually was pretty easy too. I think it took my around 30 minutes from the time I started shaping the foil into a mold till when I put it in the oven.

Next time I think I may use my own homemade bread dough because it takes 3 packages of refrigerated breadsticks (which weren’t on sale) and they were around $3 each. You could probably do it for $1 if you used homemade bread dough.

Here is the link to the recipe:

http://www.womansday.com/food/12402/how-to-make-a-bread-cornucopia.html

I’m thinking this is going to look gorgeous on the dining room table for Thanksgiving dinner…

Fall leaves pics...

Every year I try to find a great spot to take pics of the kids in the beautiful fall leaves. I have even been known to gather up hefty sacks of various colored leaves from different locations and haul them somewhere to mix them up and get those “perfect” fall pics. Earlier this week we found a street that had an enormous amount of leaves that had dropped. You couldn’t even see the sidewalk and part of the street. We drove home and grabbed the camera and a rake to scoop them into a gigantic pile to jump in.

I took about 125 photos - here are my favorites:

They said they were “leaf surfing”:

I think Dach had some “sugar intake” issues - he spazzed out in every picture!:

Zane frolicking in the leaves:

Pre-black-eye Georgia:

Dach having a grand ole time!:

All four kids taking the leap:

This was my favorite photo of the day. I’m thinking this would be a great one to blow up and frame. Maybe do it in black and white with only the leaves colorized. Georgia doesn’t like it because her tummy is showing and feels like she doesn’t look modest. Maybe I can photoshop her tee shirt to make it look longer - we’ll see…

Glad I got these photos when I did - this was the day before Georgia scraped up her face!

You can always tell when I am about to go on vacation because I become paralyzed by the amount of packing and prepping and I go into denial and start posting entries like crazy. 4 days till Maui (read: 7 loads of laundry to wash, 6 suitcases to pack, 24 homeschool progress reports to write, 1 house to clean, 4 medical releases to write, 2 birthday cards to mail, 3 bills to pay, 1 church Christmas party flier to design, 3 excel spreadsheets to crank out, 1 rental car to procure, the final night of vacation childcare still to be figured out for my boys, and dinner guests are arriving in 2 hours.) If I ever GET to Maui - I'm gonna SOOOO enjoy it...

Ok, I gave Georgia a longer shirt - does that look fake?:

Museum Thursday...

On the first Thursday of every month - most of the local museums have free admission. Some of them have it all day long and others only have it in the evening. Over the years, we have been to the Museum of Flight twice during these free events.

Claire called me this week and reminded me that this was the 1^st Thursday and asked if we were interested in doing a field trip to a museum. We finally decided on the “EMP” (short for: Experience Music Project). The EMP is this seriously funky music museum in downtown Seattle. I had never been there (mainly because the admission has always been $25/person). They recently became a part of the free 1^st Thursday deal - so we thought it would be fun to take the kids. The free admission was from 5pm - 8pm, so the plan was to meet at the church office right at 5pm when Eric got off work and take the church van so that we could all ride together and only have to deal with parking one vehicle…

Well, of course we were both running way late and didn’t get to Eric's office till almost 5:30pm - then it was another 20+ minutes before we got all of the kids rounded up into the church van and left. Nobody had eaten, so we stopped at Burger King.

This’ll make you wish you had a career in the fast food industry:

Burger King Drive Through Speaker (BKDTS): Hi, can I take your order?

Eric: It might be a minute

7 children in the back of a church van: I want chicken nuggets! I want a cheeseburger! I don’t like ketchup on my cheeseburger! I’m thirsty! Etc…

Eric: Everybody be quiet or you get NOTHING!!! You’ll all get what I order for you!

BKDTS: Are you ready?

Eric: HOLD ON!

2-3 more minutes pass while my girlfriend and I discuss what each kid will get on their burger

Eric: OK! I’m ready…

BKDTS: Ok

Eric: I’ll take 4 Whopper Jr.’s plain, and…

Me: NO! Zane gets ketchup, THREE plain, ONE with ketchup only!

Eric: Wait! Make that 3 plain Whopper Jr’s

Me: Don’t forget cheese - they want cheese on those!

Eric: Could you make those with cheese?

BKDTS: Is that all?

Eric: No. Aaaaaand one Whopper Jr with ketchup only

Me (hissing): CHEESE! IT NEEDS CHEESE!

Eric: Cheese - that one needs cheese too.

BKDTS: Is that all?

Eric: NO. And 3 more Whopper Jr’s with no onions or pickles.

My girlfriend: CHEESE! Those have cheese too!

Eric: WITH CHEESE!

Bkdts: Is that all?

Eric: NO! One more Whopper Jr with everything on it.

My Girlfriend: CHEESE!!!!!

Eric: WITH CHEESE!!!

BKDTS: Ok, is THAT all?

Eric: NO!! One Angus burger and one more Whopper Junior with no pickles and no onions. With cheese.

Me: NO!!!!!! NO CHEESE!! Cheese has too much fat - I don’t want the cheese - tell him no cheese!!

Eric (glares): Take the cheese off the last one!

BKDTS: **silence**

Eric: OK, THAT’S it!!

My girlfriend and I (hissing): WATERS!!!! We need 7 waters!!!

Eric *who looks like he is about to get out and walk*: Could I also get 7 ice waters?

We finally get our order and pull over to divide it up and find that we have 3 plain burgers missing cheese, my burger is completely missing, and my girlfriend’s burger looks like it has about 6 tablespoons of mayo on it.

We march back in and they finally get the order straight.

At this point it is 6:20pm. Eric is seriously questioning still going to the EMP. I assure him that it’ll be great fun and we’ll have enough time. We arrive in the general area of the EMP (next to the Space Needle if you are familiar with that - aka: impossible parking!) and we start to look for a parking spot. Now you have to understand that it goes against you cell of my being to PAY for parking. “Surely, there is a free spot somewhere! You just have to be patient and look for it.”

The first thing my husband says to me is: “Honey, I doubt we’ll find free parking - so you just need to give that up right now.”

“Well, can we at least look for a couple of minutes??” [This is the conversation we have EVERY SINGLE TIME we come downtown.]

We start to circle around. Meanwhile there is congested traffic on every street and 7 children are singing loudly in the backseat. Eric starts pointing out parking lots to which I respond “TEN DOLLARS?!?! That is ridiculous!” Eric is becoming more agitated by the minute “There is NO street parking!!!” We keep ending up on one-way streets and having to circle ALL the way back around. We frantically pull into “what looks like a free spot” but turns out to be a loading zone. This is repeated several times on various streets. After 20 minutes of driving around - I finally relent “Ok, Ok - let’s park in a lot!” We pull into a lot and there are no spots big enough for the church van. Then we find a $4 lot and circle the entire thing to find that EVERY spot is taken. Lot after lot is either full or won’t accommodate the large church van.

Zane begins to make fateful comments like, “Why are we driving in circles?” Meanwhile Dach loudly announces every time we drive past the EMP “THERE IS THE MUSEUM!!!!” The rest of the kids continue to sing loudly!

At 7:12pm (after 37 minutes of trying to park) - my husband makes the announcement:

“THAT’S IT!”

and he heads back to the freeway! Claire and I are hysterically laughing by this point and it takes about 2 miles on the freeway before any of the kids notice we’ve stopped our circling. Zane says “Hey, are we on the freeway?” Dach asks, “Why are we on the freeway??”

“We’re looking for parking!”

We ended up pacifying them with a trip to McDonald’s playland complete with chocolate dipped cones. When we pulled up to McDonald’s - all seven children screamed “I HAVE TO GO POTTY!!” and went running in ahead of the adults. I can only imagine the terror of seeing seven loud children come running into McDonald’s with no parents in sight.

At the playland, this little 7 or 8 year old girl started interrogating me: “What are your kids’ names? How old are they? What time is their bedtime? Why are you still here? When are you leaving? Do your kids have to go to school tomorrow? What time do they have to do school? Do you guys know each other [my girlfriend and I]? Did you drive together? Did you drive here together with all of your kids? How do you all fit in a car together?”

I am SO serious. I’d answer a question and she’d fire off another one. I started giving her smart alec answers after a while. Which only caused her to pause an extra second before firing off the next round. Wow. She was completely monotone and never cracked a smile. She started to remind me of one of those horror flick demon possessed kids who just stare strangely at you right before their head spins in a circle.

So, our educationally stimulating evening was replaced by sitting in a giant room listening to our children’s gleeful screams echo a thousand decibels beyond tolerable…

I'll tumble for ya...

Just look what I made for myself this morning:



Ahhhh, a picture perfect caramel macchiato! Seems I still have quite a quantity of leftover caramel from the other day. I had 2 of these this morning to wash away the drama of last night...

Last night just a few minutes before we were going to be heading out the door to a local church harvest party, Georgia tripped and fell down while chasing her brother outside. I was upstairs just grabbing the camera so I could round everyone up to take a group costume photo when I heard lots of screaming and crying. Then I hear Eric yell "Georgia's HURT!!! We may need to go to the hospital!!!"

Well, we all remember how helpful I was during Dach's "dismemberment incident". *take a deep breath and DON'T panic!* Georgia appeared in the doorway to the garage sobbing with her hand covering her left eye *oh crap* When she removed her hand there was no gushing blood *hallelujahgloryamen* but the area from her eyebrow to the middle of her eyelid was bulbous. I tried not to gasp. *clears throat and fakes calmest soothing mom tone while trying not to let voice crack in total panic* "Ok, let's get some ice on that!" Eric and I secretly shot each other the "Oh crap - I've never seen an eye look like THAT before" look.

Apparently she tripped, and when she fell - she hit her eye on a rock. *shudder* Her left eye, cheek, nose, chin, both elbows, one wrist and both knees were banged up. Of course after a few minutes of watching Georgia ice her eye, Maisie starts asking "When are we going to the Harvest party? I want to leave now." I'm thinking she doesn't have the gift of mercy...

Once we determined that she wasn't dizzy, vomitting, or going to require stitches we decided we could forego a hospital visit. *I wouldn't even want to THINK about an emergency room on Halloween night - ugh!* Georgia eventually decided she wanted to go the party (ice pack and all).

Poor Georgia - she must've had at least 25 different people at the Harvest party look in horror at her face and ask what happened.

Zane was in his usual frantic mode of "speed from one game to the next to collect the most amount of candy in the least amount of time. The church had a whole section of their basement blacked-out and set up for laser tag. After playing it, Zane came back and announced, "I just wasted TEN minutes playing laser tag and I only got FIVE pieces of candy for it!!" "Yes, but did you have fun...?" He does the same thing every year - figures out which games yield the highest amount of candy prizes, and plays them over and over...

I realized at the end of the Harvest party that I had never even gotten any photos of the kids in their costumes. Dach had been Sully (from the "Monsters Inc." movie) and I had even painted his face aqua with purple polka dots to match the 400 degree fur costume he wore. The costume only lasted about 45 minutes at the Harvest party and off it came and his makeup was all smeared and streaked from him crying over Georgia's injury and wiping his sweaty little face. He ended up looking like Elliott from E.T. in that morning-after scene when his Halloween makeup is all half-faded on his face.

Maisie was Princess Leia, Zane was a ninja, and Georgia was a Chinese princess. Here is the crappy snapshots photos I snapped at the end of the party:





Brilliant costume photo, eh? How's about I DON'T even get the costume in the picture...

Maisie loved her buns so much that she slept in them and then wore them all day today - here's how they looked at the 24 hour mark:

And here is how your hair looks if you wear Leia buns for over 24 hours*yikes!*:

Here is Ninja Master Zane:





Eric actually gave him his old throwing stars to go with the costume. "UM, honey - his nickname of 'Captain HAZARD' wasn't some random choice..." *sheesh, I don't even trust that kid with butter knives!*

I couldn't convince Dach to put his costume back on. My normal "bribe you with candy to get you to do what I want" was rendered useless by the GIANT bag of candy he was already holding! If you really want to see him in a Sully costume you can look at those vacation pics from Montana lthis past summer when he wore the thing in 105 degree heat while jumping on a trampoline. *Smarts. They run in the family!*

And finally, here is the injured Chinese Princess herself:

The ice helped bring the swelling down a lot. Here is how she looked this morning:

*shudders* Poor baby! This morning she said - "maybe everyone will be nice to me all day today because I got hurt." *High hopes...*

Well, at least I already took this year's pumpkin patch photos and our annual photos of the kids jumping in the fall leaves!!



Just heal by Thanksgiving, sweetie...

A "crabby" day...

We got Georgia 2 hermit crabs for her birthday (about a month ago): Rocky and ?? *can't remember it's name* The nameless one died about a week after we got it, so we got a replacement: Max.

Well, all SEEMED to be happy in paradise until I walked by the aquarium at 1am last night and saw Max in "the buff" and Rocky strutting around in Max's shell. Max did NOT look well - I can only assume Rocky had been eyeing Max's shell and finally decided to beat the tar out of him to get it. Can I say for a moment how thoroughly disgusting it is to look upon a naked hermit crab's exoskeleton?? *pukes*

But...my co-dependant nature took over and thus began the premiere episode of "Hermit Crab Care with Natalie"!! From 1am-2am I worked on the little guy - sterilizing shells and alternative temporary housing for him. I picked him up *double puke* and spend a good long while trying to get him back into a shell. He was completely traumatized - I don't know if was from the brawl or from my attempts at fixing him.

At about 2am - I finally gave up and put him back in the aquarium and hoped he'd climb back into this shell by himself.

At 8am I found him hiding under a little log/cave thing in the aquarium with one of his legs sitting a couple of inches away from him. *triple puke*

He did NOT look well! Meanwhile, Rocky was back in his own shell. "Nice job Buddy! Beat the crap out him for his shell and then decide you don't want it!" Typical "grass is greener" issues...

I moved naked Max -minus one leg- into quarantine - which meant sterilizing a new environment, getting separate food/water stuff set up and digging out the heating pad to put under new environment to maintain proper humidity/temperature conditions. After a -good long while- I FINALLY got him back into his old shell. *remind me to never, ever touch another exoskeleton again - quadruple puke*

We left for a few hours and when we came back it looked like he was feeling a bit better. "Whew."

Meanwhile, Rocky was now wandering around in yet another shell he had found in the aquarium. "Dude, your not going to the prom, just choose already!!"

I checked on the crabs before leaving for cheerleading : Max seemed ok and Rocky was back in his original shell. *shell change #4 for anyone who is counting*

When I came home from cheerleading, I put some extra shells in the aquarium (for Rocky in his quest) - but Max did NOT look well. He looked like he was in grave condition. I picked him up and he looked like he was at death's door. I called Georgia in to say her good-byes and he died within 3-4 minutes after that. Sad.

Sad that Mr. Dingledorf knocked off his roommate for a shell he ended up not even wanting! I'm telling ya - there is some wisdom in "thou shalt not covet".

Meanwhile - Rocky climbed into one of his new shells and walked around for a few hours -and- I kid you not, as I write this he is switching out into yet ANOTHER of the new shells. Will he ever find perfection...?

I was informed -upon agreeing to the purchase of these pets- that they were low cost and low maintenence. So far we are in the hole somewhere around $80-$90 with all of the crap stuff we've had to outfit them with and I'm performing complimentary middle-of-the-night emergency veterinary services.

Georgia's response?

She watched Max die and as soon as he stopped moving, she looked at me and said "He's dead. Can we get another crab?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On a lighter note - well, actually a "heavier" one... remember my caramel cement from yesterday? *By the way - the kids ate the apples anyway! They sat there licking them like suckers for the entire length of a movie and still didn't get all the way through them!* Well, I tried to doctor it after I ruined all of the apples so I heated the caramel back up and added more sugar/brown sugar/corn syrup/ fat-free 1/2 and 1/2 (I had run out of the kabillion calories per teaspoon heavy whipping cream) and let it boil till the sugar dissolved. I wasn't sure about the 1/2 and 1/2 since I'm sure there is some scientific reason WHY you have to use the heavy whipping cream - but I figured worst case scenario...it doesn't get any worse.

It ended up turning out just a little thicker than the carmel sauce that Starbucks uses in their caramel macchiatos.

So I ate a large quantity of it.

I mean LARGE.

*she said with extreme guilt*

I don't know how much I had - but after eating many spoonfuls out of the pot, pouring some in my coffee, eating more out of the pot, pouring it over popcorn, and eating more out of the pot. I had -quite- the tummy ache. WOW! I haven't eaten like that in a very long time.

But I tell ya - if you're gonna fall off the wagon...do it with homemade caramel sauce! Wooooooooo baby!!**

**And I was only 2.5 pounds away from being able to say "I LOST 50 POUNDS!!!" *sigh* Well, we'll see what the damage is soon enough!

Caramel Apple video...

Here'a a little video of my caramel apple making experience today! I tried to make the caramel from scratch.

**Key word = tried

Birthday Buddies...

So, my VERY dear friend Nita celebrates her birthday today! *checks watch - well technically yesterday* She lived across the street from me for the first 6 months I lived at my current house - then she and her husband moved about 1 1/2 hrs away. *sniff, sniff*

We went out for a birthday lunch on Sunday after church and had a blast. She is my equal in spazziness and silliness so when we get together we have WAY too much fun. She gave me one of my presents in a singing gift bag, which was hilariously LOUD in the restaurant we were in! She totally stocked me up on Yankee candles - my favorite!! (She knows I'm too cheap to actually buy them.)

Here are pics from our birthday lunch:

Look at all of my lovely gifts!!!

Here is Eric with his singing birthday bag!

Pumpkin Patch & Veggie Tales...

Yesterday we had a fun "family day". We had gotten an invitation to a special screening of the upcoming Veggie Tales movie: "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" (comes out in January). The film was mostly finished , put still had some stuff that needed to be wrapped up - like putting the score in etc...

The screening was about 40 miles from our house, so we found a pumpkin patch in that area and made a day of it. We were going to go through the "corn maze" (to the tune of $28 for a family of six) but realized we might cut it too close to the movie time and we didn't want to be lost in a corn maze and risk missing the movie. So, we just took pictures in the pumpkin patch and ran around and called it good. Here are some pics:

Here's Eric playing tag with Zane through the patch.

Eric and the wonder twins.

On the tractor pull.

Dach

Our first candidate of the year for "the" Christmas card photo...