Out of the Mouths of Babes...

Bill has duty tonight or in civilian terms, a 24 hour post so I'm doing anything I can to pass the time with the kids.

The setting: Trey's room
The situation: playing with an elephant puppet
The puppet master: Trey
The instigator: Me

"Oh hi there, Elephant. What's your name?"
"Ummm, my name is Whiskers."

Fine name for an elephant, dontcha think?

"Hi Whiskers. Where's your mommy and daddy?"
"Well, mommy's at work and daddy...daddy's in the potty."

Apparently, these are the places where Trey believes we spend too much of our time.

Let's Catch Up...

Where have I been?

Let's see...

My mom and I went to see The Lion King. Excellent. Would love to take Trey when he's older but if I were to take him today he'd be ready to go when he realized there would be no popcorn involved.

Working.

MOPS began again. Still cooking doing the books for them.

Attended three farewell parties for our bestestess friends as they are moving on to bigger and better things. Bigger church. Bigger paycheck. Bigger congregation. Bigger house. Bigger family (she's preggers with baby #3). This is the family we took to Vegas with us, the one who has the daughter that Trey will marry someday. The one that has the other daughter that my Leah proclaims loudly as her friend, which is amazing since Leah only says "Elmo, up, meow" and this little girl's name.

Trying to find just the right remedy of kid Tylenol and Triaminic to get rid of the incessant coughing and nose running going on with my little tax deductions.

Starting my taxes. Waiting patiently for my 1099 from PartyLite...ahem.
Rejoicing in the fact that the seven months that Bill spent in Iraq is tax free so his W-2 shows that we were po' last year.

Having a battle with what I thought was the beginning of the stomach flu in our household and then coming to the realization that it was food poisoning. Yay?

Dealing with my OCD about moving. We're 99% sure that the family that owns the house that we've been in for the last 2 1/2 years is moving back. This is great! No really, it is. They are our other bestestess friends, (besides Manda who is my other other bestestess friend) and they are slated to come back in May. This means we move back into military housing. It's been privatized on our base which is totally AWESOME! I've lived in military quarters twice before and this was the first time they didn't make me feel like pond scum walking into the office. The house is beautiful and all I want to do is look at floorplans and daydream about where all my stuff is going to fit. That leads me to my other past time this week of purging. I love to purge, I just wish I could make up my mind on what to do with it once I've decided to bless someone else with it.

I've been visiting everyone, but quietly. I guess I don't have much to say here lately.

Oh and by the way, to my cuz...

Happy Birthday! (one day late)

It Was an Urban Myth, Until...

It happened. It wasn't like on the movies where it floods the auditorium with its sounds, but it was definitely audible. Someone left their mic on...








when using the bathroom.





AAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!!

Fortunately, nothing completely embarrassing happened. But still...

This is Bad. Very very bad...

The story is here.

Rain, rain, please stay...

For four years of our lives together, Bill has gone to bed early on New Year's eve in order to get up at 2:30am. You have to get up so early in order to be at work by 3:30 to be on the bus in time to drive up to Pasadena to march in the Rose Parade. My husband was famous. Ok, not quite but he did march in that parade in 1995, 96, 98 and 99 before he changed jobs. He was one of those handsome Marines dressed in blue playing a behemoth of a brass instrument. I'd watch the parade alone, hoping to catch a glimpse of him while taking the Christmas decorations down. Sometimes they'd have great coverage, other times they'd show the band for a split second before moving on to the float behind them. We band wives spent most holidays without our husbands. I'd curse the fact that he was working AND that Stephanie Edwards and Bob Eubanks would brag on the sunshine we always had January 1st. "Don't encourage people to move here!!", I'd yell. They're doing that enough on their own. Just once, I'd like it to look like it normally does in the month of January.

That day happened today. My husband is home watching the parade, making muffins and it's raining on the parade. And you know what else? Stephanie Edwards, Miss Braggypants about our weather, is sitting in the stands enduring the rain.

Bwahahaha. Yes, I'm mean. Yes, I hate the fact that we are so stinkin' overcrowded here. But darn it! don't move here for the weather and then complain that we don't have any weather. Oh, and while you're at it, that traffic you hate? That's because of you.

Man, who put vinegar in my coffee??

Signing off to take down the red and green and start the house on a clean slate.

Come On Baby, Drive My Car

While my poor, dead Saturn awaited it's final goodbye, we borrowed my boss' minivan. Hey, it's great that we were able to borrow a car since we didn't have rental insurance (which we have since added). One thing that we learned is that we did NOT want a minivan. Yes, they're great if you have a gaggle of kids or a band complete with instrument cases or a plethora of surfboards, though those usually require a VW bus. You do not get respect on the road or in the parking lot with a van. I heard a comedienne call minivans, um, well...how do I say this? Vanginas because that's what you use to haul your kids around. Ha! If you have a van, of course this does NOT apply to you. I researched cars online, through the Kelley blue book website, through crash test websites in Consumer Reports until there was nothing left to compare. We were loyal and bought another Saturn. Just love 'em. They are the poor man's Volvo. We loved the new VUE's (which is what we had) but opted to go with a less expensive L-series (L stands for luxury, dahling) complete with sunroof! How cool is that? We bought the car on Thursday and my boss needed his vangina back on Friday to take the youth to winter camp for the weekend so everything worked out perfectly. Thanks, God. It's a little weird to be sitting so close to the ground after having been in an SUV for the past three years and I still swing a little wide to turn but it's great to have my own wheels again.