Car Wreck, Secret Service Ride

Yesterday afternoon Mystery Man's car (a Saturn wagon) was hit while parked at the mall parking lot. He arrived at the car to see an 80-year-old woman and a police officer near his car. The woman's car was not driveable; MM's car was kind of driveable, but the backend was quite smashed. This woman must have thought she was Mario Andretti in that parking lot!

Anyway, today I took the car to the car repair place. They said since the Saturn isn't really driveable, we qualified for a rental car. The rental car place was short on cars today, so they agreed to drive me and the kids home and then bring our rental by later tonight. I was a bit intimidated to be driven home by a sharp looking young guy in black pants, white shirt and a tie. He greeted me with a completely professional handshake and helped arrange all the kids in a BIG black suburban with nice leather interior. I sat in the back with the kids because Lorelai was crying and joked with our "driver" that I had always wanted a chauffer and this was definitely a blogworthy event. Here we are (OK, well it's PRACTICALLY how we looked):

Hey, I guess it's all about who you know... MM is just 7 steps away from President Obama, afterall...

Electronics Fun

Azael has been saving old electronics items for at least a year, wanting to build a robot. He has a new robot design (on paper) ready each week. Mystery Man and I continue to make excuses when he asks to finally make his robot, because... well... we don't really know how to build a working robot. We'll meet him halfway and purchase a Lego Mindstorm some time soon. Anyway, MM let ALL the boys go dismantle electronics items today... an old kitchen mixer, ceiling fan, cordless phone, DVD player, etc, etc. I need to have him go cut the plugs off of everything, because I got tired of saying, "Don't plug anything in!" In any case, they had a blast! Azael's favorite design, which is still on our deep freezer, is a new type of video game. He attached the front of the old DVD player to a Thomas the Tank Engine recording train station. The message says, "Hello, welcome to AVD Video Games. You can use your controller to go up, down, left, and right. I will be your instructor." He pushes that recording message to start his game.

Then he put a cardboard "disc" into the actual DVD box to begin the game. He used an old bed caster/roller thing as the game controller. The controller is "charged" for full-power performance in the white box under his hand. He played the game as if it were real and begged me to let him keep it out until tomorrow. Ephraim and Silas must not have caught his vision of this amazing game, because they didn't play long. :)

Here is Silas with his "power cruncher" (old kitchen mixer, luckily minus the cord). Not sure what a power cruncher is.

Ephraim wasn't so excited about electronics after a while, and was angry when I said he couldn't play REAL electronic games (the computer). Here he is complaining...

So, that was our fun today.

hiatus

Busy building my new business website. That's why I don't post on my blog anymore. I will be back in a week or so. I am having so much fun! :)

Candles, in the wind? Birthday tadpoles? Hmm...

We have a chemistry set and have been working through some experiements. Last week we made candles, illustrating how solids change to liquids (melting wax to dip the string in for the candles) then back to solids (finished candles) and finally to a gas (when the candles burn). Here are the results... aren't they, um... interesting?

Everytime I see these candles (we haven't burned them yet), I think they resemble, well, something like a tadpole. At least Azael imagined his looked like a leg. :)

New Furniture Surprise

In May I decided to get new living room furniture as a result of reading a book called Staging Your Home to Sell (we may move to a bigger house in 2010, and this book suggests a more modern, "together" look, especially in the first room people enter, can really help sell a home). Since I've never purchased new furniture, I was happy to give it a try!

Looking ahead on the calendar I noticed Father's Day and our 10th Anniversary were happening on the same day. The stars were aligned, so to speak, so I decided to make this a surprise gift for Mystery Man.

Week 1: I shopped for furniture, largely via the main furniture stores' websites, then checked out the real furniture in the store (sans kids), and then made the purchase (all the money came from my business). I had the challenge of finding furniture to go with our yellow walls. Not easy!

Week 2: I decided on curtains & accessories.

Week 3: purchased cool lamps from Home Depot.

Weeks 4-5: Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

Week 6, Delivery Day (today): Here is the "before" photo.

Mystery Man left for work at 7:08 a.m. and the 3 boys and I were able to carry the green chair to the garage. The couch was another story. Luckily an older guy from Italy, whose granddaughter was in Azael's class, walked by and offered to help. He seemed to be a "master mover" and the couch was quickly in the garage. [Note: the neighbors were supposed to help me, but they didn't show up and I didn't want to bother them so early].

I removed all the pictures from the walls, removed the pictures from their frames, then spray painted the frames black. They dried in about an hour and I re-assembled them and hung them back on the walls.

Lorelai dumped a box of cereal on the floor as I was polishing the furniture pieces I planned to keep (piano, shelf, and chair). Then the delivery people called and said they'd be here in 7 minutes, so Azael and I scrambled to get the room cleaned up and cereal vacuumed. They unloaded everything in a jiffy, and then we all stared in shock at the furniture.

Mystery Man arrived this evening, walked in and simply looked confused. His responses, in a dazed fashion, included:

It's nice.

It's very fancy and modern.

It's nice.

It seems like we need to have a meeting here.

This seems like a room where people should chat.

Are our kids capable of sitting in chairs? [Yes, of course, I replied].

Anyway, without further adieu...The "after" photos.

A side-by-side comparison:

That's that. I'd love advice on anything you think we should add or change. In the meantime, we'll have some meetings and teach our kids to sit in chairs.

note1: I decided I couldn't hang the curtain rods without help, so the new curtains aren't in the picture. They are "Pottery Barn-esque."

note 2: I wish the woodwork wasn't 1970s brown, but painting it would be a crazy amount of work.

note 3: Special thanks to Jen Lee for sewing that fantastically cute chocolate brown cushion on the wooden chair. She rocks!

note 4: Special thanks to my advisors, Amber, Erika, Stacy, Emily, & Ann. You rock, too!

Mama's Takin' Us to the Zoo!

I love the Raffi song, "Mama's taking us to the zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow. Mam's taking us to the zoo tomorrow and we can stay all day. We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo. How about you, you, you? You can come too, too, too! We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo!" So here we are, along with our friends, the Lees and the Batemans. It was GREAT! (Oh, and Azael chose to stay home with Daddy, who wanted to mow the lawn). Our zoo is free, incidentally. Yay! A nice bonus for the humans. And, according to Tabitha, a big problem for the animals. I'm just happy I'm a human, I guess. And not living in the zoo. :)

Lorelai in the archaeology play area (by the tree play structure).

Silas proudly conquered the climbing rock!
Ephraim & Silas, 2 of my favorite monkeys.

Lorelai enjoys the carousel. Or, actually, she's nervous.

Stacy, Tabi, and the kids (minus Lorelai)

Happy Anniversary

I am late posting this, but Mystery Man and I enjoyed celebrating our 10th anniversary at the Samba Brazilian Grill. They had a fantastic salad bar and 8 different cuts of meat. All you can eat, of course. We had fun! Here we are at our table. Isn't this an exciting blog post? :)

I Am Cast Away

Life can be a beautiful thing. For example, my experiences in nature last week were beautiful.

This scene below is beautiful, too, right?

I'll bet you'd be surprised to know that this is an image from the movie Cast Away (starring Tom Hanks). In this movie, a FedEx executive, Chuck, must transform himself physically and emotionally to survive a crash landing on this deserted island.

Chuck eventually finds a volleyball in one of the many FedEx packages that float to shore with him, paints it with his own blood and names it "Wilson." Chuck slowly develops a deep friendship with Wilson. There's nobody else to talk to, afterall...

Chuck finds great joy in things he would have found "simple" in his pre-crash life. Here Chuck revels in the joy of creating a fire.

Chuck changed a lot through his experiences. Although he did look a bit worse for the wear when all was said and done, he eventually left that island (experiencing the heartbreaking loss of his best friend, Wilson, in the process). Chuck was a survivor in every sense of the word.

When I'm pregnant, I feel like a castaway, too. Like Chuck, I am being physically and emotionally transformed every day. While thankfully my children are a bit more talkative than Wilson, I can relate to Chuck's feelings of isolation, and the repeptition of the same mundane tasks of survival day after day after day...

And remember Chuck's JUBILATION when he was able to make a fire? He shouted for all (or none) to hear:

"I have made fire!!"

Some nights, if you're in my neighborhood, you might see me pounding my chest (like Chuck) and shouting:

"My children are asleep!!"

When all is said and done--after all the difficulties, challenges, and heartbreaks of childrearing are over--I hope to be a survivor, too. I hope I'll look back with fond memories and laughter. But in the meantime, I fear I'm beginning to feel and look a little worse for the wear. What do you think?

Class reunion, here I come... at least I have buff triceps.

Photos: Rural Relaxation

These photos may give you a glimpse of why our recent trip to Iowa was so rejuvenating for me....

MM, Silas, Lorelai, & I shared a canoe most of the time

Tiffany, Jeff (my brother & his wife) and Ephraim (with a lollipop in his mouth)

Josh (my brother), "Double G" (Great Grandma) and Azael

Uncle Gary & Aunt Linda (left) chatting with my Dad & Mom (right)

Azael & Ephraim spent a lot of time out of the canoes.

"Double G" decides to "paddle" Ephraim. Or something.

floating down river...

Double G and my Mom

My Dad & Uncle Gary chat while MM makes sure the kids are not drowning

Aunt Lnida in the front

Azael

Silas & Lorelai decide to go into the river, too

Tiffany helps Lorelai

Azael & Ephraim floating downriver. Where is the grownup who is supposed to catch them? I guess they lived through it. I think this is when MM went running down the sandbar to catch them at the other end.

Uncle Jeff helps Silas

A photo while we waited for the men to get the vehicles from upstream.

The beautiful rural Iowa countryside. This is one view from my parents' house.

Those trees on the first hill on the right are where I relaxed during my walk.

A shot of my mom's extensive gardens

The west view from my parents' house. It's so nice to see nothing but NATURE (no houses, cars, etc.)

I caught a secret photo of MM sleeping on the hammock.

Enjoying the firepit.

To the northwest of my parents' house you can see a series of windmills.

MM found them hypnotic. The farmers earn good money to have those on their land. There you have it. Rural Relaxation that affected me at the molecular level. That's deep stuff, never to be forgotten.