The Bitter with the Sweet

 

The first bitter news of the week, which defined, means difficult to accept and mentally painful.

 

Rhea, John's Peregrine Falcon he had for six years passed away this week.

We are still in shock.

We all got quite attached to her.

 

No immediate plans to replace her yet.

In fact, John is thinking he might take a break from falconry for a bit.

We will see what the future holds.

 

In other bitter news, Alicia graduated from sixth grade today.

It was difficult to accept because I am having a hard time grasping that we will now have two daughters in junior high, and it was mentally painful because my girls are growing up too fast - I know its cliché, but all I wanted to do when I got home working my full days at Lagoon was to cuddle up on the couch with John on my one side with the younger girls taking turns sitting on my lap and to my other side, with Kimberly and Alicia chilling at the end of the couch.

 

Truly blissful moments, and mentally painful because the time is starting to accelerate too quickly.

I've often caught myself pining over the days when the girls were young, but then I think, "I guess I will just have to wait and enjoy that again with our grandkids."

 

Seriously!?!?

Am I really already planning on holding my tiny grandbabies and cuddling with cute, fun toddlers again? 

Yes, and I am finally admitting this aloud for the first time.

 

That is why I was a basket case at Alicia's graduation, thinking about the not-so-far away years when we start sending them off to college, which actually is only 4 short years away for Kimberly.

Great...the tears will be flowing onto the keyboard if I keep going.

Aackk! I digress....

 

Back to the topic at hand:

 

 

 Alicia received an award for superb improvement in her schoolwork.

Here she is sharing the moment with one of her dear friends, Corrine.

 

...and what would a graduation post be without the classic pose with the certificate picture.

Here it is:

 

 

Now to go find a Kleenex. Sheesh.

 

Quick! I have a few minutes...

I seriously do not know how moms do it who work full-time out of their home. While working at Lagoon last week (and this week), I have not been able to keep up with regular chores around here, and by the time I get home after a full day's work, I am pooped! I just want to sit and lounge, let alone think about making dinner, tidying the house, returning phone calls, helping kids with homework, and running all the errands that didn't get done during the day.

I have a few minutes right now though, so I am quickly posting an update since I haven't had a chance to do so, and won't this week once Lagoon gets into full swing. So here goes - our updates for the last couple of weeks.

The biggest venture (including the price tag), was removing this beast of an elm tree in front of our house:

 

 I was seriously dreading having the big tree gone, but surprisingly, it actually doesn't look too bad.

 

We've had quite a few windy days, so the girls pulled out the kites, however, given our tree-land location, we've lost a few kites to their limbs.

 



 

 For my birthday, the girls and I went out for pedicures and manicures:

 

Kim found  a birds nest in one of our trees, and it looks like she is sitting on some eggs.

 

We are hard at work on projects (as always).

Here's the latest:

 

 

We spent Saturday putting in the flag pole, complete with realizing too late we had bought the wrong cement stuff after dumping all four bags into the hole. I furiously dug up what I could while John raced to get the right stuff from Home Depot.

It is up just in time for Memorial Day.

You'll notice that both cars are unable to park in the garage.
That's because all of our projects lying in wait are taking up their usual spots. 

 

John got the hardwood fixed where the closets used to reside, and we have the molding up which we now need to calk and paint.

 

 

Lastly, we are in the final stretches of the basement remodel!!!
John is getting the bead and baton board up on the walls.



The ceiling and the TV/fireplace wall is painted.



Eventually, we'll put up bookcases on either side of the fireplace, but we ran out of basement funds, so those will have to wait.

Speaking of funds, we ran out of $$ to do the flooring in the basement too - what with the unexpected wiring issues requiring us to redo ALL the walls, discovering the gas fireplace that came with the house didn't work, learning that new gas fireplaces aren't cheap, and a rather expensive car repair during the winter.

So, in chatting with one of our neighbors, lamenting the situation, we learned they had two HUGE pieces of nearly brand new carpet they pulled up in favor of hardwood when they moved in, and it was just sitting in their garage! Paying tithing paid off.

We'll lay that down temporarily in the family room and hall until after next year's Disneyland trip.
Our poor girls. We had planned to go to Disneyland last year, but we moved instead, so we moved the trip to this year, but our budget went to finishing the basement instead (and lots of other new house expenses), so we WILL be going next year.
The big projects will just be put on hold, like flooring.

 

That's it for now. You won't hear from me until June when my Lagoon adventure is done, so have a lovely end of May!

Lagoon - It's where the fun is

So my friends, I get to work at Lagoon. Now you know, working at Lagoon has never been a dream of mine, but getting season's passes for my oh-so-bored kids during the summer will be fun, so therefore, I get to do a teeny-boppers job of loading up kids onto the upside-downy Colossus Fire Dragon roller coaster for 8 hours, for a total of 9 days during the parks school days.

Yup, that's a total of 72 hours all for my kids.

The girls owe me. BIG time.

My kids are already asking me to make sure I do this every year.

We'll see how it goes. I may not ever want to see or hear Lagoon noises at the end of the two-weeks.

In other fun, we've been catching these in our backyard...

WARNING: the picture is graphic:

No kidding, we have a rat haven in our backyard. Granted, we are next to the mountains and a huge several-acre park behind our house, so this is probably their territory, but still. They must go.

Kimberly is getting really good at resetting the traps after each kill. We're up to 7 rats in the last 2 days, and counting...

 

A Mountain of Legos

We checked out a Lego show last weekend. 

 The hit was the mountainous pile of Legos they had to play in.

Spring Smorgasbord

Happy Easter!

 

 

I just had to include the ones of Natalie putting up a fuss -

 

 

We love her anyway, despite the funny faces.

She turned 7 last week:

 



Megan keeps asking when she is going to get "bigger" like Natalie.

Until then, she will still be our baby at age 4: 

 

With the spring weather, we have all been outside more, soaking up the sun.

I usually go out to the back porch to eat my lunch, and it takes every fiber of my being to drag myself back into the house to work.

 

We put up a swing in the backyard, which the kids all enjoy: 

 

 

For Easter, the bunny also brought soccer stuff and Frisbees, especially now that we have a big yard to enjoy those things. The girls have been out learning some new soccer skills. No pictures, but I'm sure you get the idea :)

 

Happy Spring my friends!

Blood Moon

I inadvertently stayed up and saw the blood moon last night. I say inadvertently because I had not planned on staying up, but thanks to a nap I had taken earlier in the day to make up for having woken up at the unearthly hour of 5:30 a.m. to cover a story assignment, I was not tired at bedtime. John went to bed, but I kept puttering around the house and reading a book, and before I knew it, it was 12:45 a.m., so I hung outside and watched this lovely view...

 

I think that is Venus right next to the moon.

John woke up and bleary-eyed, went out to see it, and then I woke Kimberly and Alicia up. Kimberly was impressed, but Alicia wanted nothing to do with getting out of bed. Frankly, I don't blame her.

 

 

Spring Break

Spring Break has come and gone. We only got a few measly days this year.

 

 Right before spring break, Megan joined up with some other preschool kids for a field trip to Clark Planetarium. We had a blast (no pun intended.)

 



 

Kimberly competed in her final regional competition for her Science Olympiad team last weekend down at Westminster College, where she placed first in Metric Mastery.

 

 

We also celebrated John's mom's birthday over the weekend with an adult-only dinner (Kimberly was the one exception)

 

Here's the clan. It was so fun visiting with everyone without having to worry about our kidlets. Don't mind the picture with too much light. remember, I am still an amateur working with my camera. By the time I noticed I needed to change the settings a little more, everyone was back to eating, therefore, the above picture will have to suffice.

 

After dinner, we made our way over to the Hale Center Theater to enjoy the Les Miserables tickets mom and dad gave all of us adult kids for Christmas. It was the best play I have seen to date at that theater. Simply incredible.

 

Most everyone made it. We missed you Keith and Delores (who had to attend on a different night), and Marian and Randall (some insane distance away in Kentucky).

 

  Kimberly and Tammy

 The newly pregnant Heather and Justin. So excited!!

 Gail and Mike, who sold their house in one day and will be off to Arizona soon. Traitors. Okay, maybe that is too harsh...we will miss you!!

 ...and the ones who initiated the fun evening, Mom and Dad

 The newly engaged Tammy and Conley

Kevin...how did I completely miss getting a picture of you?
Wait...I may have something...here we go -


 

On Monday, we enjoyed the local swimming pad, and on Tuesday, the girls enjoyed this:

 

 

Now it is back to the grind. I am currently in the process of painting the hallway from the front entryway (remember the one we "created" to get the piano into the office/den).