I'm-a gonna go ta hell when I die da da dah

Conan has this little song he sings when he says something particularly insensitive and he does a little jig: "I'm-a gonna go ta hell when I die, I'm-a...." I mention this because 1) it's one of my favorites and 2) I sing and do the little jig in my mind more often than you'd think if you attend my Sunday School class. On the trip down to LA, we made our first regularly scheduled potty break @ the Cadillac gas station in Rawlins. The boys went in w/ Rob as usual. As usual, I finished before they did. I got a pop for me & got drinks for everyone else and then I heard Jeremy start to scream, this went on for some time. Apparently, he just wasn't in the mood to go. The next morning we stopped for the first potty break of the day at some tiny town between Lehi & Beaver (we don't stop in Beaver because we don't want to deal the crooked tire pushers). Somehow in a process only known to himself, Jeremy managed to get his entire backside soaked & he had to change into the emergency clothes. The next stop of the day was for lunch at a buffet in Mesquite. After lunch, we naturally took a potty break before hitting the road again. Well, Rob insisted that I take Jeremy. After an uneventful break, Jeremy and I were finished much earlier than Rob & Peter. So, I had Jeremy practice making a frownie face and saying, "I cried, and made a mess and Mommy spanked me!" When Rob asked how it went, Jeremy made his frownie face, told Rob that he cried, made a mess and that I spanked him. Well, Rob just about lost it right in the middle of the casino -- until Jeremy and I started laughing & Jeremy explained it was a joke! The scary thing is how well Jeremy pulled it off. I think I'm going to have to add "No tricking Mommy" to the list of things he can't do if he wants Mommy & Daddy's college money.

Saturday we had the most amazing experience. We got up at the crack of dawn & made it to D-land when it opened at 8. We got a phenomenal parking spot -- the best we have EVER gotten. That by itself was enough to make for a fabulous day. However, while Rob was dashing over to get Space Mtn fast-passes, we measured Jeremy & he's big enough to ride Indy! Woohoo -- so we rode Indy when Rob finished the fast-pass run and then headed over to Big Thunder. Since it was so stinkin' early, there was no line there either. When we got off our 2nd Big Thunder ride at about 9, the Dream Team was handing out Dream Fast-Passes to everyone who got off our train!!!! Ohhh -- we were so flumoxed that we had to regroup. We rode Pirates to clear our heads and come up with a new plan, since we didn't want to waste the Dream Fast-passes. Dream Fast-Passes are express tickets to the 13 best rides -- D-land & Ca Adventure. They hand out about 100 a day. We never imagined we would get them, but they are by far the best Dream Prize. They also give away dopey things like a night in the dream-suite in the park, shopping sprees, chances to lead the parade, eder="0">tc. Anyway, we then focused on riding the fast-pass rides. We figured out that we could still get & use regular fast-passes. So we ended up getting enough fast-passes that we rode Big Thunder 6 times, Space Mtn 3, Soarin 2, Indy 3, etc. As if that wasn't fabulous enough, Peter finally decided he was brave enough to ride Ca Screamin (my personal fav) AND he liked it. Since Jeremy isn't tall enough for that one, Peter rode once w/ Rob and once w/ me. Then we ALL rode Tower of Terror. Generally, when we get off a ride, Jeremy says some variation of "wanna go again!" Not this time -- it was, "I want to get off!" In fairness, it was only mine & Rob's 2nd time -- the first time was 7 years ago. I think I'm good for another 7 years. Anyway we left the park at about 11:30 that night. We still had a couple unused fastpasses -- we were just too wiped out to keep going. Poor Jeremy -- we didn't get a stroller on Saturday, so by the time we were headed to the tram, he just couldn't make his little 5-year old legs go any more!

I can't find the battery charger for my camera, so I'm using the dopey card reader to transfer photos & it is taking forever.....grrrr! I don't dare try to transfer video while that is going on -- so maybe later I'll get some videos posted. Rob's new thing has been to take photos while we are on the ride. I haven't watched those yet, so they may never air.

Another quick note on the Asperger's stuff. I think it's actually going to be very helpful for us. The more I learn about it, the more I'm able to find new skills for me and more importantly, things Rob & I can teach Peter. I've always had demons that I've been fighting, and when I found something that worked I would hold onto that. The hard thing was that I couldn't see the demons, but I knew they were out there. Now, I'm learning things that help me 1) recognize the demons, 2) learn more strategies for fighting them and 3) helping Peter do the same thing. It's also helping Rob. I always understood Peter better & Rob always understood Jeremy better. Now it makes sense -- we have two distinct brain types in our house. It's also helping me to connect to Jeremy by helping me understand that 'normal' people think differently than me & it helps me to understand what 'normal' is. I still have a lot of work to do, but I'm glad to have more tools available. I'm hopeful that Peter will be able to learn to use these tools earlier in life -- maybe he won't struggle with them quite so much.

Tagged

I got tagged by a friend to answer the following questions.

FOODOLOGY*

What is your salad dressing of choice? Not sure what it’s called, but Green Street Restaurant in Pasadena’s Mackey’s Chicken Salad – think it’s a ginger/Chinese thing….

What is your favorite sit-down restaurant? Oh dear…….it’s the French restaurant @ Epcot Center –ooooh, but the Italian one was really fabulous!

What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of? Mackey’s Chicken Salad (see # 1)

What are your pizza toppings of choice? Pineapple & pepperoni or the Pizza Hut BBQ Chicken pizza.

What do you like to put on your toast? real butter and dip it into hot chocolate – learned that trick in Jr High French class.

*TECHNOLOGY*

What is your wallpaper on your computer? Jeremy in his Jedi-Cowboy-Stormtrooper costume looking very serious.

How many televisions are in your house? 4……..hey – that’s only 1 per person! It’s not like the cat has a TV….yet…..

What color cell phone do you have? silver

*BIOLOGY*

Are you right-handed or left-handed? right

Have you ever had anything removed from your body? Teeth, gall-bladder & 2 kids…

What is the last heavy item you lifted? 55 lbs of suitcase [So they have a new gal at the Casper airport. She asked me if I wanted to re-arrange anything in my luggage. I said “no” very matter-of-factly, which I thought was extremely polite of me AND very reasonable since it was 5:30 am. She gives me a really annoyed look and says, “Delta charges $125 for over-weight bags.” So I said, “you really should look at my ticket before you tell me that.” She looks at the screen, scowls and says, “I don’t even know if Delta will take a bag over 50 lbs.” At that point, I look at the regular gal for some help, she comes over, says “Hi”, puts a Heavy tag on my bag and says “Have a nice flight, Ma’am.” As I left, I heard the regular gal telling the new gal that they would need to review the elite flier rules again…….]

Have you ever been knocked unconscious? Nope. Well not that I remember other than surgeries.

*BULLCRAPOLOGY*

If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die? Hmmm, depends on if I had enough $ to have a really fabulous party or trip & still leave my family financially stable.

Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1,000? $1K? No.

*DUMBOLOGY*

How many pairs of flip flops do you own? zero

Last time you had a run-in with the cops? Last flight home on a Friday – got a warning for speeding into town at 11 pm…..in front of the Beacon…

What do you want to be when you grow up? Rich.

Last person you talked to? Front desk clerk.

Last person you hugged? Cori

*FAVORITOLOGY*

Season? Spring

Holiday? Christmas

Day of the week? Saturday

Month? April

OK – so I copied the form from Steph’s blog (since she tagged me) and I didn’t have to change any of the Favoritology answers!

*CURRENTOLOGY*

Missing someone? Rob, Peter & Jeremy

Mood? I survived! Had a board meeting today which was stressing me out!

Listening to? Law & Order, Criminal Intent

Watching? My words show up on my monitor.

Worrying about? Getting work done, finishing Xmas, planning for after Xmas trip, will we ever adopt? How long will Rob be the Spotted Man? Will Jeremy be totally bored with Kindergarten? Are we going to get the Xmas lights up? Why didn't anyone comment on my new title photo? How come spell-checker doesn't understand contractions?

*RANDOMOLOGY*

First place you went this morning? work

What can you not wait to do? Spend Thanksgiving with my family

What's the last movie you saw? Hunt For Red October – it’s on the iPod – yaaa!

Do you smile often? I guess, mostly when the kids are being cute or people do stupid things…

If they have time, I'd like to hear what Janelle, Michelle & Angela have to say. I think we need to get Bev & Cindy blogging…..

Halloween Pox!

So, on Nov 1st, Rob got this funky rash. We didn't think much of it, since it started to go away. But, just when the spots went away, a whole new itchy batch showed up. Turns out that it's Chicken Pox! Ha! Yeah, so he was contagious 2 days BEFORE the first pox showed up, including the 2 hours he spent wandering around with our kids AND the neighbors' trick-or-treating! And at Bev's party. I'm amazed at how many people had their kids vaccinated. Rob is currently on wave 4 of the pox. Apparently when an adult gets it after having it as a kid, it can go on for a couple of weeks. Our kids have been vaccinated, but if that doesn't work, they could see pox just in time for Thanksgiving.

This is Peter at 18 months. I made the costume for his first Halloween, but it was WAY too big. I did NOT make Pooh's costume. Jeremy never wore this costume -- he was too big for it for his first Halloween at 12 months.....

The second photo is our bathroom -- in the basement!!!! We have connected plumbing!!! Yaaaa!!!!!!!!! It still needs a little work, but it's got tile, fixtures and a door! Hopefully the ceiling tiles will show up soon. I put some gold paint in the topcoat of the venetian plaster -- it glitters a bit. The floor is a little intense -- gives you slight vertigo. I thought about getting a glow-in-the-dark additive for the grout, but that may have been over the top. I still think we should get a fish-n-flush. www.fishnflush.com I haven't been able to talk Rob into it yet. Hmmm -- maybe Santa will bring one......I'll have to think about that while I try out the jets in my tub this weekend.

Why do I always find typos AFTER I publish the post? Really, I use the spell check, preview, etc. Then I post & check to see how it looks and BOOM there's grammar errors up the wazoo! Spell checker does NOT have a problem w/ 'wazoo', but it doesn't like 'topcoat'. What gives?

Pumpkin Portraits

These are our self-pumpkins. Everyone did their own. The best part is it was relatively mess-free -- only a few pieces of foam to pick-up.

So, I've had sinus headaches on & off (mostly on) for all of October. I thought my troublesome crown was acting up, so I went to the dentist. He x-rayed & poked it 5000 times and pronounced it innocent. That was all fine and good, but I still felt crappy & was heading straight towards unbearable. Finally, I decided that my mixture of decongestants, advil, aleve & oragel was really not cutting it and finally went into the Dr. Turns out that I've got a full-blown ear infection! I had no idea how painful they are! Holy cow! No wonder babies are cranky when they have them! Anyway, I've been on the antibiotics for a week and I think it's almost gone.

Jeremy & Peter are going to be Power Rangers, unless they change their mind. We are getting a fairly decent supply of options: Superman -- classic colors, Superman -- new colors, Spiderman, red or black, Batman, Indiana Jones, Stormtrooper, Darth Vader, various Jedi, a skeleton & I think something else... That doesn't include the odd assortment of other accessories: tri-corner hats, fireman hats, armor w/ coordinating sheild & sword, cowboy hats, etc....... Jeremy has been bugging me to dress up for Halloween. I wandered about Walgreen's Halloween section in pain while waiting for my prescription & bought some fake eyelashes w/ bling on them. That's all I've got so far. Frankly, I just haven't felt up to thinking about it. Hopefully I'll have some great inspiration tomorrow.......

Mail Call

OK -- so I really only check the snail mail once a month unless I'm expecting something. The flaw in this plan is that sometimes people send me things as a surprise. So -- hey -- it's my birthday again!!!

I was looking for photos of Rob's Dad the other day for a project and found some photos from a trip Paul & Janelle took to LA a LONG time ago.

I think this was the trip when they wore the watermelon outfits to Knott's, but I haven't found any of those photos yet....

I had something that I wanted to rant about, but I can't think of it off hand -- it's probably because it's not late enough.

Pre-school is a fabulous thing. Jeremy has a great time. He wants to go to bed early so that he can get up and go to pre-school. He's learning his letters, finger painting, etc. Rob is also enjoying having some alone time three days a week. I still can't believe it's only $100 a month!

Oh -- NOW I remember!! Non-smoking sections at restaurants! Why do they bother? Yesterday we ate at Outback and the bar was on the other side of our booth. We were in the non-smoking section, but since there isn't any separation, we got tons of smoke. Ugh!!!!

It probably wouldn't have bothered me so much, except that I've got a tooth which is bugging me. Grr -- my dentist is out of town until Tuesday. I think I'll live, but I'll definitely be grouchy. The tooth that hurts already has a crown. So, I don't know what they'll do with it, but I'm sure it isn't going to be fun!

I made an appointment for Rob while I was at it just to share the fun!

OK -- the Office is on -- gotta go!

It's October, Do you know where your gloves, hats & boots are?

It's totally useless to watch the weather reports here. Apparently we live near the edge of the radar area. That combined w/ a small population and weathermen that are younger that some of my favorite socks makes for unreliable weather reports. So when they said we were going to get 8 inches of snow this weekend, I naturally ignored it. That usually means we'll get a few pithy flakes like the bits that fall out of TP packaging. Well, NOT this time! Peter & Jeremy made the snow angels in the back yard on Saturday. They also tromped all over the place and generally made a giant freezing mess!

Well, by Sunday am we'd gotten so much more snow that we couldn't see any evidence of Saturday's tromping. And this was wet snow -- not the powdery stuff we usually get. Despite my better judgement and not having thermals, I decided to shovel while Rob was at meetings this am. Happily I've lost just enough weight to fit into two pairs of pants. I decided that shoveling would count as working out. Well, Jeremy decided to help me. He brought his own shovel -- one that we use at the beach..... Anyway, by the time he and Peter managed to get their gear on, I was done shoveling and Rob came home, so we decided to build a snowman. We'll probably only get 1 or 2 more good snowman building snows this year, so we have to take advantage of the good stuff.

I was scrounging in the garage for snowman parts, when Rob remembered that we had a snowman kit from Christmas last year -- Thanks Emil!!! The snowman looks a lot better w/ those parts than the things I scrounged up from the garage! Peter decided that he needed arms, so he built some T-rex style snow arms. It was above freezing most of the day today, so we had to keep sticking parts back in & he probably won't survive tomorrow. It was fun anyway. I'm attempting to post a snowman making video -- it's kind of long & one of the neighbors down the block started up the snow blower, but I haven't gotten video editing software mastered yet, so it is what it is...for now...

The pipe is for blowing BUBBLES! Is there any other reason for a pipe???

So the other day I had the TV on mute and Peter saw John McCain on it. We really don't talk much about politics, so I was surprised that Peter knew who he was. Peter said, "Hey, that's John McCain. He's a good man." I asked him what he thought about the other guy & he frowned and said, "We can talk about that later," and went back to practicing the piano! Later hasn't come yet -- personally, I've been sick and tired of the election for months!

Welcome to the Dark Side

Hey – Janelle – saw the new blog! Now we need to start working on Bev & Cindy…..remember there is another…….a sister!

This was our 2006 family photo!

I’m going try to post a video using my b-day present….nothing bad happened, so it was pretty good as far as birthdays go.

I was traveling this week. Usually I read 3 books a trip, one on the flights down, one while there & another on the flights back. However, I loaded up on Aspberger/HFA books to read. The one I started on the way down is called, Thinking In Pictures and is written by a woman w/ Aspbergers. I only got through 100 pages on the way down, 0 pages during the week and 50 pages on the first flight back (blogging from SLC airport). The problem is that so much of what she says goes to my very core. It’s like she can see in my brain. It’s very unnerving and I’m not at all happy about it. Unfortunately, there a lot of good coping ideas in there for me and Peter, so I have to keep slugging along. It’s made me very anxious. Up until this diagnosis, I had myself figured out in my own mind and convinced myself that I was normal and everyone was odd. And really, I wasn’t all that different, so I told myself as I kept paddling down the Denial River – or was it the Clueless River? Anyway, I’m definitely on a different body of water now and I no longer think I’m in control and I don’t have a clear path, hence the anxiety. Grrr. I did find a couple of Alexander McCall Smith books that I haven’t read, so I’ll probably read one of those on the last flight and listen to Hunt for Red October. Of course, NOW I know that my Red October therapy is classic HFA…grrr!

On the good news side of things, one of the Asperger books I got for Peter seems to be really helping him w/ the reading comprehension. It’s a story book written for kids Peter’s age w/ games in it to help them understand the story better. Rob is very happy with it. I’m supposed to find more like that……not sure it’s possible. Ugh!

I did manage to meet up w/ my very bestest friend from East/KW in Denver. She married a lovely man & is living happily ever after – Yaaaah!!! We all went through a corn maze. My favorite was the ADA signage in the maze. The path was definitely wide enough for a wheelchair…..but it was quite muddy. It’s a wonder the ADA act didn’t outlaw mud! Anyway we had a good time and the kids think we’re crazy! Hey – we ate a place I saw on the Food Channel – White Fence Farm. It was really, really good & they had a playground for the kids while we waited for our table. Why doesn’t everyone do that?

Speaking of food – I ate at a couple of really expensive places this week. One of them was really good (we should have gone to In-N-Out for the other). Anyway at the good one I tried quite a few new foods. The foie gras was actually really good – although I covered it in a TON of sauce, so it’s possible that I just like the sauce. I also had Mac & Cheese w/ white truffles. I tried a tomato gazpacho – that was horrible. I had salmon that was just amazing – it was by far the best salmon I’ve ever had. Even the spinach was good. Oh, and for desert I had a dish w/ warm chocolate beignets, homemade marshmallows and chocolate sorbet w/ a candied kumquat. If it hadn’t been a business dinner, I would have ordered a second dessert! I’m tempted to catch a flight back to O.C. so I can get more…..well, not so tempted after I think about the price. I think my dinner came out to $100. I’m putting everyone else closer to $150/head including drinks. Our environmental consultant was picking up the tab. They are definitely well paid! OK – gotta go catch my flight. Check out the Pack 94 blog – has photos of the last pack meeting and Rob wearing the Corn Head!