Unexpected trip to the snow!

Last week was my first week at school here. I really like it! The campus I go to is a satellite campus from my actual school. I wasn't expecting much from the campus because it isn't the actual site and is fairly small...but it's really great! They have a lot of things to offer there, including a bookstore, counseling, a gym and great classrooms!

I'm only taking one class there in person and I am taking one online. I hate online classes! I think this will be my last one. When I started school over 3 years ago I went primarily online because the boys were a lot younger. But now I really dislike them. It's just a lot to force myself to spend the time at home to work on the class. I would much rather go to class for 2 hours 2-3 times a week than try to teach myself!

Plus, the online class I'm taking right now interests me about -100% (if you can get a negative percentage of interest!). It's Govt. Policy making, I hate that talk! And it makes me mad I am taking it! Oh well...it's a transferable class, so that's a good thing. My other class that I take at school is a Creative Writing, Non Fiction class...and I love it!!!

This weekend was fun! On Saturday we went to my Dad and Michelle's and had a really good dinner and played Trivial Pursuit! And I did laundry (I really need to get an electric dryer, like yesterday!)

On Sunday we went out to breakfast at a great little country restaurant in a tiny nearby town! It was excellent and we will definitely be going back there. After breakfast we were going to go thrift store shopping (I really like searching those stores for treasure...and I've found some great things here!) Matt said he knew where one was up the highway a bit...It was raining here but snowing up the hill further....so needless to say...we ended up nearly in Tahoe!

Matt's claim to know where a thrift store up the highway seemed to be a scam to go to the snow! However, no one was dressed for the snow and like I said in a previous post....I freak out driving in the snow!


I was a mess driving up there. There was chain control right passed our town, but we got through it because we have four wheel drive. I was a stress case, but once we got up there I calmed down! We found a great lodge/restaurant and stopped there to get some hot chocolate and apple cider. We walked in there and I fell in love!!! It's a lodge that was built in the 1850's, they had a fire going with lots of couches in the front room and a wall full of games. The boys and I played Candyland and drank our drinks while Matt played the piano. I could have stayed all day! They have the cutest restaurant, it wasn't open though. We are definitely going back another day!


I drove back down so I could get some experience. I got stuck getting out of the parking lot and had to use the four wheel drive. Once I got a feel for how it feels to be stuck and then to pop right out with the 4x4, it was great!!! I have so much more confidence in myself and my car! (Thanks Dad for making a great choice of cars for me!!!)


We made it home and had grilled cheese and soup, then we made a run to In-N-Out for shakes...it was a great way to end a really great weekend!

Today I took Ry out in the stroller on a trail for a while. It was great! But you know it's been too long since you got out and jogged when you get blisters on your hands from the jogging stroller!

They hurt!

Hiking, Harleys and Panic Attacks

So in the end, no letter was sent to school. Austin woke up the next morning and decided he didn't want the note after all (Dang it!!!). Oh well. He went to school with a really positive attitude the next day saying, "If they want to be my friend, they can come to me!". And within the next 2 days, the boys came to him! So all is well on the playground now...just in case you were wondering about our first grade drama!

This past weekend was fun! Saturday was spent hiking in the morning, followed by visiting a gold mine! Afterwards we went home to watch Football! The 49er game was Great!!!!!!! The Broncos game....not so great. It sucks to watch your team get slaughtered.









The hike was nice though and the mine tour was fun! The boys got to use their hiking packs for the first time and they were great! (not to mention, so cute on them!)

Sunday was church, then errands and then the park! I took the boys to a really great park while Matt stayed home and worked. After the park we hit the old fashioned candy store in old town. I hadn't taken the boys there before and they LOVED it! Of course, their candy choices aren't very original. Of all the old fashion, weird and different candy choices they could have made...they left with blow pops and gum! I could have gotten those things at 7-11~

On the way home from the park there was a guy with a broken down Harley at the bottom of our street, I stopped to ask him if he needed any tools....and now we have a broken down Harley in our garage!

The rest of our evening was spent.......pushing a heavy Harley uphill to our house, Matt and our new found friend Jimmy, working on it in the driveway, deciding the thing isn't going anywhere and fitting it in our garage (this guy is trusting to leave it here!). We then we all piled into the car and hit up In-N-Out....you get hungry pushing motorcycles uphill! (I actually didn't push, but I was still hungry!) Then we decided we would take Jimmy home, he lives half an hour away. So we had a little road trip to a tiny little mountain town where we deposited Jimmy.

Now the Harley sits in our garage until Jimmy can get someone to come pick it up...supposedly tomorrow.

I still can't get over how nice and trusting people are up here. I get it that the guy really had no other option than to leave his bike here...and maybe we are the crazy trusting ones for hosting an old, gruff biker dude to dinner and an evening drive, but still...I love this place!

Turns out our friend Jimmy started school two years ago after a life of bad decisions and recovery and is almost finished with his psych degree! You would never guess looking at the guy! He actually goes to my school, so looks like I made a friend...maybe I can get some free counseling!

The weather has been abnormally awesome here since we moved...I'd like to take credit for that by the way, and say that I brought the sunshine! But it looks like our luck is running out, it is supposed to start freezing tonight and the rain and snow are on their way...which makes me nervous. Last year Matt, the Kids and I took a drive up to Crestline and Running Springs in the snow and ice...and I was a freakin' wreck. I mean, I was in serious need of anxiety pills. At one point I was actually crying I was so scared. Of course, Matt thought this was hilarious and purposely slid back down a hill for fun....while I threatened to jump out of the car. (I know, we are highly functioning adults!)

Anyways, I know that the weather here is no where near what it is there, but I still get scared about it. I don't worry so much about driving in the snow, it's the ice that scares me. I actually googled how to drive on ice so I would be prepared! Like always, Google to the rescue! Now I'm ready!

Sledge Hammers and Amazing Parenting Skills

Don't worry... I haven't forgotten about my blog, we have just had a fairly uneventful past week! Last week ended without much fanfare. Austin did well for his first week and had fun! On Saturday we went out to my moms house to have a BBQ. We had a nice day visiting, playing, riding bikes and BBQing in the crazy wind!

Sunday was church in the AM and relaxing afterwards. We have had a cold floating around the house and bouncing between everyone. The boys had it first, Matt was feeling poorly on Sunday and it was my turn on Monday. In addition to my cold which came with a nasty sinus headache, I dropped a sledge hammer on my head on Monday, which caused me to sleep from about 5:30 Monday evening until 7:30 Tuesday morning. Tuesday morning I felt well though, except the bump on my head still hurts when I wash my hair or touch my head!

Yes, in the above paragraph I did say that I dropped a sledge hammer on my head, just to clarify. I actually didn't drop it, it fell off of the top of a ladder. Why was it on a ladder? Because I was hanging a tennis ball from the garage ceiling, so I know where to stop my car. Why was I using a sledge hammer? Because I couldn't find a hammer, Of Course! I forgot I left the sledge hammer on the top of the ladder (it's a 6 ft. ladder), so when I closed it, the sledge hammer fell off and landed directly on my head. I stood there checking for bleeding, while I assured Ryland that I was fine, when really... I wasn't quite sure I was. It sucked.

We finally got our T.V. and Internet hooked up yesterday. Which is very nice because our inventory of DVDs is getting really boring and I'm tired of going to Red box every day! The cable guy was lonely and stayed for more than 2.5 hours. (Mind you, our house is prerun for cable, he literally had to hook up the box and modem, that's it!) He went into detail about his personal life and why all the girls he likes suddenly stop talking to him. I couldn't help but think, "Dude, I don't blame them...I don't even know you and I want to walk out of my own house so you'll stop talking". At one point, he actually sat down on the couch and started watching T.V. I was like, "Can I get you anything, you want a beer or something?" Well, not really...but I thought about it. I finally had to begin dropping hints about how late it was getting and how much I have to get done! He left, Yay! But not before telling me his plans to move out of state with a girl he met on the Internet who offered to pay off all of his debt with her babysitting money...she makes $35.oo an hour. My thought: I need a babysitting job in Florida! And this poor boy has a lot to learn! Go get'm tiger!

Austin came home sad today because some boys he met wouldn't let him play with them. It broke my heart! He wants me to send a note to his teacher tomorrow to tell her about what happened and ask her why the boys wont let him play. How cute is that! I mean... super sad but so cute that he want's his Mommy to send a note to school to make the kids play with him. I'm totally doing it!!!

I'll let you know how that one pans out!

Matt and I sat down and talked to him about why they might be being mean. Which boiled down to; you're the new kid and they are jerks! We told him that he has made lots of other friends, these boys are obviously not nice, so why do you want to be their friend anyways.

Matt went into how there are A**holes everywhere and how even Mommy and Daddy deal with them where we work and do life, but not everyone is an A-hole, so let them be and go hang with the nice kids! Literally, we said A**holes. ( I know, parenting at it's finest! We told him he can never, ever say that word though, so we're good!) Sometimes you got to throw a little curse word at the first graders once in a while to really get their attention (a tip I learned from a dear friend who teaches 7Th grade, I know....1st and 7th are very different, but hey...you do what you got to do!)

Anyways, after our award winning parenting discussion, we actually had him feeling better and laughing instead of crying. Which made me feel a lot better, even if we did call his first grade class a bunch of A-hole jerks!

In the end, it was good. He feels better and hopefully will just let the mean boys be and play with the nice ones. He still feels the need to make them his friends...so I'm sure he will try again. I just hope he doesn't get his feelings hurt again, or end up in the principles office for dropping the A-bomb on them!

And I am sending that note! I'm going to be crazy-mom for as long as he's willing to let me be! One day he will beg me not to send a note, until then...It's on!

Austins first day of school!

Yesterday was Austins first day of school! Well, not his very first day of school, but his first day here at his new school. In preparation for this, we took him on Monday to get his hair cut at the salon. Now this was a fairly big deal, due to the fact that while living down south Grandma Lori cut his hair every time and he has never been anywhere else for a haircut! (Thank you Lori for that by the way!..He always got great haircuts, great memories and you saved us tons of $$$!) Here is a pic of his first salon haircut!

We got up early yesterday morning to get ready! He was excited but a little nervous, I on the other hand was very nervous! There's just something about sending your kids off into the big world by themselves that is really freaking scary! So much of me wanted to tag along all day with him to help and defend him!

We got to school and went to his class to check it out and meet his teacher. His teacher is great! She is so friendly and warm. Austins desk was all ready for him with his book and a pencil box full of fun things for him! The little boy who sits next to him was all set to be his special helper for the next few days to help him! When the other kids came in, there were lots of "who's that kid" questions, but everyone was pretty nice! After a few minutes of watching him I managed to force myself out of the classroom and on my way! It made me happy that he wasn't too much of a "Big Boy" to give his mom a hug and kiss before I left! He seemed nervous and quiet, but OK!

I worried about him for the majority of the day. Matt came home early so we could pick him up together and he brought him a really cool bracelet for his first day of school gift! When we got to school he was at the parent pick-up area waiting with his teacher (which she kindly agreed to do earlier in the morning!). She said he did a great job! He seemed happy and said he had a really fun day. He met a few new friends, figured out how they do things fairly quickly and was excited to go back today!

On the way to school this morning we had planned for me to walk him in again. But once we got there he changed his mind, and I dropped him off at the parent drop-off area. He jumped out of the car and a little girl from his class called his name, she caught up with him and off they went to class together! It was so cute and so reassuring...he's going to be just fine!

Nieces visit and Happy New Year!

We had our nieces Elizabeth and Sienna visit last week for a few days. They spent 3 days and 2 nights at our house and we had a great time. We spent time riding bikes, playing at the park, doing art projects and making pizza! The boys really enjoyed having their cousins here and being able to play for awhile with them.







The girls went home on Friday night. Saturday we went out shooting and had a lot of fun. Austin got a BB gun for Christmas so we took him and his gun and Matt took his. (Matt's isn't exactly a BB gun though!) We drove up the hill a bit and found a place where everyone goes out shooting. It was a ton of fun! The boys had a great time shooting their targets (AKA...plastic bottles). After shooting we went to a little town about 25 minutes (but 10 miles) away. It has a population of like 900. It is super cute though and we checked the little town out and found a pizza parlor where we had lunch and the kids played video games.

For New Years Eve we had planned for a movie marathon. (I know, we really know how to party!) So we hit up Red box and got 3-4 movies. We also hit up Raley's where we purchased a disgusting amount of candy and barely enough Shock Top! Shock Top, is my new favorite beer and is amazing with a slice of orange or a little bit of OJ!

We all got in our "comfy clothes" and sat in the living room to enjoy our treats and watch some movies. Before we could do this though, Matt wanted to rearrange the living room. When we moved in the Christmas tree was already in place, so the T.V. and couch were arranged around it. Matt was not pleased with the arrangement, so once the tree came down (which happened sat. morning)...the furniture was in need of some rearranging.

Now, Matt and I often see things differently (we're married... and I'm pretty sure that's a prerequisite for marriage!) And furniture arrangement has been a fairly common disagreement for us. However, to Matt's credit, 99% of the time his ideas are spot on and mine don't work. I just don't see how things will work in my head the way he does. Needless to say; he had an idea, I disagreed, he did it anyways and WHAM.... I L.O.V.E. it! The living room is so much more open and inviting. You can now see out our window to our amazing view from our couch! I should really stop disagreeing about this issue (but what kind of fun is that?!)

So anyways, we sat in our newly arranged room having a great evening together to welcome the new year! The boys were asleep far before midnight, but Matt and I made it and at midnight we went out on our front porch to see what everyone was doing! People know how to party here! We could hear Old Town from our house with tons of cheers and screams and horns honking! Someone was lighting fireworks in our neighborhood, so that was a treat! Lots of guns going off and pots and pans clanging! It was exciting just to listen to!

On a little side note; Matt and I met exactly 10 years ago to the day on New Years Eve! So it was fun to stand on our front porch, just the two of us...celebrating 10 years together while everyone cheered and lit off fireworks!