toilets, turtles, harry potter and goodnight moon...

...that's a short description of my evening last night. I got to babysit the munchkins while Trish and Justin went to dinner and a movie.

When I got there I was a little surprised to see Jake running around the house sans diaper and pants. Of course it all made sense when he promptly sat down on his brand new potty. I guess he asked for it all on his own, sounds like every mom's dream to me! Thankfully before Trish left she convinced hip to put his diaper back on. Auntie's are made to spoil children rotten and change an occasional diaper, not empty out potty's!

He's just so proud of himself I had to take a picture. He doesn't quite understand what he's supposed to do once he's sitting on it, but he has so much enthusiasm it just doesn't matter at the moment.

KayLee likes the potty, but I wouldn't say she's as gung-ho as Jaker. She really just likes to ware the little cushioned seat as a bracelet. Oh course that sends Jake on a mission to "fix" his toilet. Pretty darn cute all around.

After playing with the new toilet, reading a few books, jumping on the bed, playing with a turtley awesome stuffed turtle, and trying on everyone elses shoes it was time to put them to bed, so we had bottles, and read Goodnight Moon. Of course then we had to say goodnight to everything in the house. But they went down no problems and I felt succesful! Not an easy feat with 2 year old twins.












Almost time for bed!

Once the twins we down for the count I finally got to spend some one on one time with Nathan, who had been very good while his siblings were still up and running around the house. In fact there are no pictures of him because he was being so good at entertaining himself in other parts of the house.

He and I read a chapter to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets just before bed time. It was a whole different experience for me to read that to a child. He was so enthralled and excited. It made me want to reread the entire series though his eyes. I've missed the magic of Harry, Hermione, Ron and Hagrid!

All in all it was a good night, munchkin snuggles and one on one time with Nathan!

Perspective

So Tom Brady is out with a knee injury that will require surgery. A crushing blow to Patriot fans, and many Fantasy Football owners, my Scottie included – on both counts. It’s not the end of the world, in fact if any athlete is motivated to return in the best shape ever, it’s Brady. It’s also football, not a life changing event for me, but still a hard pill to swallow. We spend a lot of time watching and cheering Brady and the Pats. I’m hopeful for Cassell who stepped in like a champ and brought us a victory. I’m confident the other players, who work so well as a team will continue to do so, but it’s still sad news for a player who commits fully.

I’ve been reading a lot of coverage on this and the poor sportsmanship of some people is beyond me. Apparently at the ESPN Sport Zone in Manhattan, the entire bar cheered when he went down. When it became obvious that it was a serious injury message boards all over the internet praised the KC player who took him out, and laughed and joked about Brady all while chanting that he deserved it. Say what?

Now I know football is a rough sport. Heck the injured list after yesterday’s games grew quite a bit, but no one deserves to have a career threatening injury. There are teams I hate, for example the NY Yankees, but I would never cheer Jeter or Damon going out of the game with a horrible injury. I don’t like the Giants or the Colts, but you don’t hear me wishing a fractured leg for either Manning boy. I will admit that on occasion I’ve wished for Peyton to get a thump and a bruise on his forehead just because I’m so sick of seeing it in every commercial, but I don’t wish him pain and I certainly wouldn’t want him to suffer and scream on the field. And I wouldn’t gloat to fans of those teams that I was going to take the championship. Some of the things I’ve been reading are pretty vile. Realizing I’m a tad bit sensitive to the whole mess I think I need to step away from it, I’m just really disheartened that people would actually wish harm on a player so their team can benefit.

And then there are things that put everything in perspective. While we were bemoaning our fates as football fans, our good friends were making the choice to put down a beloved dog. Marble was a super cool wolf/Sheppard mix and I had the pleasure of baby sitting him on a few occasions. Unfortunately he had deteriorated with age and it was time to end his suffering. It’s such a horrible choice to make and I know that selfishly a pet owner wants to hold onto this family member who has brought countless hours of joy into a home. On the other hand, you love that pet enough to know that they are suffering and you have the power to relive that.

I know that Marble is in dog heaven chasing after opossums and squirrels and eating all the potato chips and chicken he can find. I only hope that his owner, Bruce, finds some comfort in the days to come. Personally I would be a wreck if I had to put Olivia down. There is a special level of comfort that a fluffy dog or cat provides. It’s a connection not shared with other humans, and I know that connection runs very deep for owners.

* sigh *

If only we could just start Sunday over and end up with a better outcome for everyone.

Marble 1995-2008

Are you ready for some football??

It's that time of year!

Season starts today! Giants are playing...we hate them. Sunday is the fun day!

From now until Februaury I'll be spending my Sundays, and some Mondays sitting on a couch, hat and t-shirt on, stuffing my face with all sorts of horrible finger foods, and yelling at the TV! I love this time of year!

Growing up I was a baseball fan. I didn't learn to love football until I married a football fan and sat through game, after game, after game. I finally got tired of not knowing what was going on so over the last few years I've paid attention and adopted Scott's team. I guess I could have picked my childhood team the 49ers but we already argue about politics so adding football to the mix didn't seem prudent.

I'm now a proud Patriot fan! I just got lucky that they are so good now. When Scott picked them as a kid, more then fifteen years ago he picked them because they weren't the Seahawks. He suffered with them through many not so good seasons. But now we have the good stuff...

* happy sigh * I am so ready for this! I even have a new shirt on the way. It will be here just in time for next weekends game. Which should be awesome. Pat's are playing. Steelers are playing. Chargers are playing. Dolphins are playing. Not each other, but that's who all our friends root for and we plan to be very loud at what ever sports bar we make it to.

Teddy Bruschi I heart you! Tom Brady you're not so bad yourself! Go Pats!

We Love Labor Day Weekend

Scott and I had an rare weekend. Usually we're running around town, busy with friends or family, but this weekend we were the only people in town so we decided to take some mini adventures of our own.

Day 1 - Hood River
We loooooove Hood River. If we could live there I think we would. Maybe someday we'll retire there.

Scott windsurfed for a few hours and then we walked around the town.

Hitting the road!
Scott sailing with the wildlife

Day 2 - Oregon State Fair

I love fairs! I adore them. I used to go to fairs in Wisconsin and Illinois when I was little and I loved the animals, the food, the shows, all of it. So this year when Scott agreed to take me I was ecstatic! I had the mandatory corn dog, some curly fries, and a bag of cotton candy that I just finished eating today. We got rained on, but the storm passed and it was back to exploring! There were so many sweet bunnies, and the cows are so fun. I miss spending time with animals like that.

We watched some kids try to ride sheep. Hilarious! Poor kids, they were doomed from the start, but it was great entertainment for the adults. It reminded me of the baby pigs they would race in Wisconsin. They named them Tammy Faye Bacon and Arnold Swartzenhogger....hee hee

I can't wait to go back next year!!

The aerial tram

Sweet BunnyFried goodness....mmmmmm

Baseball and The White House

Okay, so I realize three posts in one day is a bit excessive...and it won't happen often, but today is one of those days where I feel like sharing.

In my job it's not unusual to get wacky phone calls. People ask me what kind of wood they should use to build their wine cellars. People ask me if we make cakes (???) like they saw on the Food Network? Um the name of the company has VINEYARD in it!!

This week I had a call from The White House. Yes 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue called. All I can say is they want to use some wine, at some dinner, on some day, with some guests. Vague? Yes. Fun? Of course! I once watched a show on the White House's inner workings and a lot was about the house butler and service staff. I had visions of all that while talking to him on the phone, and of course I'm just certain my name is now written down on some very nice, super fancy stationary with the official seal embossed on it. He did tell me I was "too kind". Such a lovely call...The former Poly Sci major in me was giddy.

Then I get a call today, from someone who knows someone who works for a team in the Major League Baseball organization. I was asked to name my favorite player on the team because they are going to send us some signed memorabilia...well I'll be dammed if I couldn't think of one "favorite" on this particular team. As an Oakland A's fan, and a friend of many Boston fans I am not allowed to even entertain the idea of a favorite on this team. I actually sat there, silent for a moment and thought about what to say...so all I said was "wow, that's going to be hard because we're west coast fans!" and then I offered to transfer him to someone who could answer him. I'm sure you can figure out who the team was. Seriously it's like asking a SF Giant's fan to name their favorite Dodger, it ain't gonna happen!

Doing my part...

Often times I feel helpless or useless in the sense that I’m not able to make an impact on this world, my community, one person who really needs someone. I think that’s a fairly common feeling for most of us because it’s easy to feel insignificant next to the grandeur of large organizations or people who are able to give wads of money away. It’s also easy to feel overwhelmed by the many needs individuals in this world have.

However, I feel better when I have done something that I know is helping others. Be it buying the Street Roots (great local program here in PDX) newspaper from the homeless man standing in front of Powell’s or taking a name off the giving tree at X-mas time. A month or so ago I decided that I was going to make more of an effort to do good things. My first step in that was to sign up for some volunteer work. My first shift was last night and I had a great time!

My friend Chrissy and I went to the Oregon Food Bank and helped label and repack cans of salmon. It was actually pretty easy work as work goes, but it was hands on, and will directly affect people in my community. We were there for two and a half hours but the time went very quickly so we were surprised when it was time to leave.

Our volunteer coordinator offered to give us a tour before we left and everyone knows I love a tour, so I was first in line! Lucky for us, only three people wanted the tour, so we had some one on one attention and got to ask questions and see things close up.

The Oregon Food Bank has a huge garden where they teach people how to grow their own food, even in containers like five gallon buckets for those people who may not have a yard to dig up and plant. We met their little lady chickens, saw some huge plants, and then went back to the warehouse for the rest of our tour.

The warehouse is quite a site. It’s the only food bank building in the country that was designed specifically for food bank usage so it’s special. It’s also huge, and completely owned by the food bank. They service 57 million pounds of food a year and serve many, many agencies in our area as well as all over Oregon and Clark County, Washington.

Our tour guide even took us in the freezer which is kept at 10 below! Brrr! Poor Chissy was in Capri pants and a little white shirt…

Overall it was a great experience. We’d already signed up to go back on the 20^th, but today I signed up for a few more days in September too.

On the 25^th of Septmeber, if you’re in Portland, take advantage of the great food drive they are putting on. See below! Clink on the picture for more details I’ll be in Mexico otherwise I would so be there.

Welcome one and all to the the new blog...

I know some of you are readers over on MySpace, and some of you may be new... so welcome to all of you. I decided to have a blog over here because it's a bit more accessible, more customizable, and well I just like the look and feel of this better. So here I am, with a pretty new green blog with swirley whirley gigs in the corners.

I'm going to try and update this more often, also combine it with the harvest blog I do every year. So if you had bookmarked that blog, you can move it to this one. Though I will still have those posts archived over there on livejournal. I figure this year I can get away with more pictures and cute anecdotes rather then all the technical stuff I'd written about before. You should all be experts now if you were paying attention the last two years!