Co-Conspirators

So, it turns out that if you put a bunch of mischevious people together in one room for long enough and with enough talking and laughing....Crazy ideas will be hatched.  Ordinarily said mischevious people would look like normal humans you might see anywhere in your life...

Exhibit A

 Exhibit B

Exhibit C

DO NOT let their innocent appearances fool you though.  These folks are wickedly creative!  One night while Mom and Jess were visiting Aunt Lois and Uncle Doc in Texas, they got to talking about how much I like sheep...well, scheming really.  I'm not really sure HOW it all went down, but eventually the plan was hatched that Aunt Lois would sacrifice her beautiful sheep to the cause of a good practical joke/gift and Uncle Doc would sacrifice his beliefs on the way to treat a lady and write me a letter about my sheep's creation.  Both sacrifices were GREATLY appreciated (even a lady can understand that it's not really lying if it's for a good hearty laugh) and boy did I get a kick out of opening, planting, and sprouting Gertrude.  I swear, when I walked into the kitchen one day and saw that my sheep seed had sprouted I practically fell over laughing.  Evidentally, while Mom was in Texas, Aunt Lois helped her pack up Gertrude and bring her home in her luggage.  Then they waited...and waited...and when the time was right and I was the least suspecting, they SPRUNG their plot on me.  Uncle Doc acquired the closest thing to sheep "product" as he could get (eeeewww....I watered sheep poo!) and spent time gluing on some fleece.  Then he packaged it all up and they shipped it off to my house.  When the time was right and I was beginning to give up hope on my sheep seed ever sprouting, Mom brought in Gertrude and put her in my pot!!!  Even my dad was in the kitchen for the big discovery and boy did his eyes twinkle.  Mind you, I didn't find out the story until a while later since a)I couldn't quit laughing and b) my mom was being coy with their plotting.

Walk Down Memory Lane

My Aunt Lois and her son Max are in town from Olton, TX and Marin County, CA so today was a day for a meandering walk down memory lane. As background, my mom is a fifth generation Hanford, California girl. Although she grew up in Reedley, it was very important to her parents that she be born in Hanford. Today we visited the Selma Cemetary to visit my great-great-great (I think) grandfather Peter Bock.

Then we went to visit my great-greats Jacob and Ella Bock...who for some reason seem to be rolling in their graves (or maybe it's just that they're shocked at my lack of web skills)...

Then we went to visit my great grandparents Herman and Grace Harper.  I've heard so much about my mom's memories of her as a child--She LOVED spending time with her grandparents.

Then we were invited into the house where Aunt Lois and Grandpa Jim grew up, starting at ~age 3-4.  Seriously, the nicest lady...she didn't have to invite us into her home, but it totally made my mom's day.

We finished off our day driving through Hanford looking at all the old haunts of Aunt Lois and my grandpa and that my mom remembered visiting when she was a kid. Oh...And there was this:

Which I valiantly worked my way through... 

People around the world know about the best ice cream shop in Hanford, California.  I swear, you can be traveling in another country all together, mention Hanford and people ask about The Superior Dairy.  Best Ice Cream EVER.

 

On the way home everyone (except me...I was driving) fell asleep or at least rested their eyes.  This reminiscing is hard work!

 

Dear Valerie,

Dear Valerie,

Tanya tells me that you have recently been hired by a prestigious accounting firm and are likely (someday in the future) going to be managing Hedge Funds. I thought, as I have a lot experience with all things "Hedgy", that I should move in with you to give you advice and encourage you on your path.

Sincerely,
Your new Roomie
Herbert the Hedgehog

Thanksgiving recap

I had a fantastic Thanksgiving and looking through the pictures deciding what to post has me drooling over the food and remembering the fabulous people all over again.

Here's what my plate looked like: Basically, the perfect (to me) Thanksgiving meal...Homemade cranberry sauce, dark turkey meat, mashed potatoes with my mom's gravy, green beans, yams with brown sugar and homemade bread rolls. Simply fabulous! Although I wasn't able to finish all this food, I still managed to make room for Apple Pie and Pumpkin Pie. I know gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins, but on Thanksgiving I really didn't care.

There was also music:This is another of my favorite things. Listening to my dad and uncles play their guitars and sing all the songs I grew up listening to. Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins, Kris Kristopherson and many campfire songs feature heavily in the playlist. Mmmmm....Perfection!

There's also been a little bit of knitting. This is the project that I've been working on for a few days as an in between project after finishing my projects for Round 2 of Nerd Wars and waiting for the start of Round 3:

I also bought a new Camera (please note the capital "C"...This is a serious.business Camera...vastly different from my poor little point and shoot.) So far I've been enjoying it and look forward to learning more about composition, aperture and all those other foreign words that photographers bandy about like it's nothin'.

Well oiled machine

We are on our way to visit Grandma in Coeur d'Alene, ID and I am mesmerized by the way the ground crew, flight crew and other airline/airport employees work together. It's like watching a dance to see the people guiding the planes in to the terminal and seeing these huge machines stop on a dime.

A very special houseguest...

is making her way to my house!!!

Dress Code

Here's one of the "dangers" of going sample sale shopping with people that you work with. Every now and then you show up to work with the same shirt on as your coworker. Unfortunately, I didn't get one of these same shirts or else we could have written it up into our dress code!

And, as fun as it is to have two coworkers dressed alike, it is nowhere near as fun as the time when we were touring Europe and five out of the seven of us assembled in the lobby of our hotel wearing VERY similar outfits and didn't even notice until we were walking in a line down the streets of London. (Give us a break--we were very tired and it was very early.)

Big Time First Grader

On Thursday 9 June 2011 my 'baby' became a Big Time First Grader. He graduated from The Learning Tree's private kindergarten and is now spending his days going to parks, arcades, movies, touring restaurants and playing miniature golf.

One of the coolest parts about the Kindergarten Graduation ceremony was that all of the kids got to read a passage or a book that was at their level. Tyler read "Armour of God" and was also chosen to read a series of jokes. Tyler's Favorite? "What's Black and White and Black and White and Black and White?"....... "A whale rolling down a hill..." hahahah...

Ringing in Summer...

With a snowy drive to Big Creek. I never would have thought that we would have a fresh fall of snow over the Memorial Day weekend. But I have photographic evidence so it must be true! Look:This was our destination. If you haven't been to the Big Creek General Store, you MUST go. Milan, the proprietess, and her daughter, Regan, put on a fine meal. I really enjoyed the new menu item of Tri Tip on Garlic rolls...Delicious!!!! And of course, the other reason we went:

Milan makes the BEST cobblers and homemade ice cream I've ever tasted. Worth every minute of the drive up to Big Creek.

Then, since we were already there, and have been meaning to do a snow trip, we headed around the lake to Tamarack Ridge. Luckily Kim anticipated snow and packed enough warm weather wear for all of us...including Tyler's fabulous ninja mask.Of course, no trip to the snow would be complete without a snowball fight. It was great fun and then shortly after this picture was taken, Tyler absolutely fell apart. He has this thing about bundling up. He won't. So he wore sweat pants. Yeah, didn't last long. On our way home, we stopped to marvel at this majestic waterfall:

The thing that is so amazing to me is that this is how huge it is before all the snow starts melting...there's still a TON of snow up there to fill this waterfall. Wow.

Nothing says romance like...

a trip to Target....With Matching Handicaps...

UNLESS!!! It's matching wheelie carts going around the store.
Mom and Dad had a wee spot of foot trouble this winter...in the form of a broken foot and three foot surgeries among the pair of them. The whole medical saga is rather boring, BUT when we all went to the store together and I looked back at my trailing parentals, I couldn't help but giggle uncontrollably at these two sights...constantly. No really...I was a source of endless mirth for me that day.

Disneyland and a sneak peek!

My family has had a longstanding love of all things Disney. I wouldn't say we were "Over the Top" Fans...but we have spent a LOT of time there over the years. In fact, when my sister, Kim, was attending UC Irvine we had season passes.

This year for Christmas I decided to buy Tyler tickets to Disneyland and I am soooo glad I did because I saw a lot of this: That look of wonder is worth every penny scrimped and saved for the tickets. As he grows older, he is wowed by different things, but Disneyland has the ability to wow people of all generations.

One interesting turn of events for this Disney adventure was that originally the plan was for my whole family to go--but then Dad had foot surgery less than a week before we were scheduled to go and wasn't able to make it. Kim decided to stay home to help him out, but Mom was still up for the adventure. Mom, however, had broken her foot right after Thanksgiving and was still in a cast. Soooooo...we did Disneyland like this:
With me getting a great work out pushing the wheelchair filled with Tyler, Mom, crutches, snacks, jackets, etc. For all those years that I thought it would be just great to have someone in my group in a wheel chair, I take it back!!! Disney has done a great job (darn them) of making nearly everything wheel chair accesible, which means that even if you're in a wheel chair you wait in line with the rest...There were a few rides which we got to go to the front of the line for, but for the most part...the wheel chair was quite tricky.

We got some good Mother/Son pictures:

It was a great trip and it was especially nice to be on the trip with Tyler and my mom because we were able to make the trip all about Tyler and what he wanted most. Every kid's fantasy!
One of my favorite non-people pictures is this one that we took at California Adventures at night:

I love the way that the colors on the wheel are so bright, cheery and inspiring.

In fact, it was that color wheel that inspired me to buy this fabric:
Which will turn into a quilt project that looks a wee bit like this:

More to come on that later!!

We did a little bit of quilting...

On Jessica and Valerie's primary colors 1930's quilt.

See that stretch of argyle patterned quilting on white? Yep. That was me!

Spidey Ghost

Tyler's school had a "Storybook Dress Up Day" for "Harvest Time" (it's a Christian school and they stay away from the word Halloween). Originally he was going to dress up as the Road from Cars and we had an all black outfit and reflective tape to put down the center of his body, but at the last minute he couldn't find the book and while looking on his bookshelf saw that the Spiderman book was right there and he knew that if he found his book really quickly, we'd have time for a Curious George show before bed. So...He went as Spiderman instead. Don't get me wrong, he makes a cute Spidey, but I really really really liked the Road idea.

On the Saturday before Halloween, Tyler's friend from school invited him to her church Trunk-or-Treat. It was really fun to see Tyler with his friends. and he had a great time seeing all the cars and people dressed up.

Tyler also decided at the very beginning of all Halloween Costume talks that he was going to be a ghost. So I found a white sheet and planned to make him a ghost costume. Knowing how particular Tyler is about these things, I knew that he would have to be a main contributor to the design of the costume. He had a very specific idea in mind and so I had him draw out exactly what he expected and he supervised the whole process to make sure it was right. I learned that I will never be a costume designer, but it was still fun to have Tyler be involved from the very beginning. It was kind of funny to have him be so emphatic about having the waves at the hem and that there were to be absolutely NO arm holes. However, at the last minute, when he realized that if he had no arm holes he would not be able to carry a trick or treat bag, he condescended to allow me to cut holes for his arms...It was in the parking lot...

Tyler and his cousin, Jake, had a blast playing the carnival games at Doug's church Trunk-0r-Treat:

My dad was there in his Fresno County SAR/CARDA Capacity (Doesn't he look all official in the orange?)

This stance from the Trunk-of-Treat should probably have been my first warning of "boys will be boys".

Tyler got into his first fist fight at school--with a boy who is about 5 inches taller and probably 30 pounds heavier than him. On the one hand, I cried over the fact that my 5 year old was in a schoolyard brawl (Kim said we should call is a fisticuffs because that was more civilized and therefore more socially acceptable, but I think it was a brawl), but on the other hand, I am kind of proud of his guts and gusto for taking on a kid so much larger than him...and winning.

5 years ago today....

I looked like this: and then after a lot of effort, I had 9 pounds, 8 ounces of this:

In the process, I created 2 very happy grandmas:

One Papa who went AWOL:

Another who popped over "On his way to the Bank":
4 years ago he looked like this:

and was walking like a champ!

3 years ago he looked like this:

2 years ago he looked like this:

Last year he looked like this:

and this year he started KINDERGARTEN!