Friday, Friday, Friday!

We've been having very interesting and entertaining weekend for the past 3 weeks in a row. I've got A TON of pictures to show off- but I need to weed through them to select the ones to share. We've also been at scout camp all week and it's not over until tomorrow at noon- so I have a ton of those pictures as well.
We are off to a GREAT SUMMER!
More pictures to follow later!

Memorial Weekend 2009 Camp Out

So, last Memorial Day we camped out- but froze to death when it started snowing on us up in the mountains. This Memorial Day we had a GREAT time with PERFECT weather down at the reservoir. We did lots and lots of things, but it mostly involved water. Here are a ton of pictures from the weekend and frankly, I'm too worn out to dialogue everyone of them. But I will say this- you have to check out the video of James showing Harrison how to cast a fishing line- it's HILARIOUS! (and James felt soo bad afterward!)

WEBLOS Cross-Over Event and Other Updates!

My mom has accused me of "being quiet" for the past few weeks- but we've really not had much going on!! So, here are som highlights of the past month or so.

Last night was Harrison's "Cross Over" to becoming a Weblos from cub scouts. He was SO excited! The senior Weblos inducted the new junior Weblos by drawing meaningful, elaborate "markings" on their faces (good thing it was with washable mark!)

And then the new Weblos walked across the bridge to recieve their new books and change from Bears to Weblos. Again, Harrison was just in pure excitement mode. Watch this video and look at his face at the very end. He couldn't be more proud of himself!

We did some spring cleaning. By the way, do you remember cleaning your room by throwing everything under the bed???!!! I certainly never did that- but that's the way Harrison cleans, if left to his own devices. So, he spent the spring-cleaning-afternoon like this:

We also headed down to Fresno for the Mother's Day weekend. We went to BBQs, parades, birthday parties, picnics, brunches, pool parties....and the only picture I ended up taking was this one, right before we left...

I guess I need to start taking more pictures! I just never had my camera on me when it would have been good to take pictures. But this weekend we are going on our annual memorial weekend campout and I promise to take and post lots of pictures when we get back. We'll also heading to San Diego in a few weeks and I'm sure we'll have pictures from there also.

mama mia

Motherhood has been on my mind a lot lately. I've been trying to figure out what exactly motherhood means and feels like. Maybe it's different for every woman. For me, I've felt like a mother ever since Harrison came into my life. I didn't carry him but I've tucked him in at night, I've made sure he understands his homework, I've made him happy, which makes me happy, he's made me smile, laugh, cry, rush home from work to be with him. For all intents and purposes, I've been mom for a while now. But now that I'm facing the prospective of carrying his brother or sister in me, giving birth to my biological child, I wonder if other mom's feel differently with their different kids. Would they admit it if they did? Do we have different relationships with our mothers than our siblings do? I think so. I think every mother/child relationship is different and unique on some level, right? Does that make some relationships smaller than other- or just different? It depends on the mother and the child right?
One thing that is certain though is that being a mother makes you appreciate your mother so much more than you ever did before. The late, sleepless nights, the stress over how to handle different things, the tutoring and the hours spent helping with homework, the vacations, the laughs, the dinners and the grocery shopping. Honestly, having only one child, I have NO idea how my mom handled having 4 kids at one time! That is just craziness!
One of my favorite moments with my mom that I will always remember, and that she probably doesn't remember in the slightest, occurred probably 20 years ago! We were driving in the car, running errands and decided to take a detour and run one more errand that was out of the way. I ask the question: "Can we get there from here, though?" Her response: "YOU CAN ALWAYS GET ANYWHERE YOU WANT FROM WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW." That, to me, is the essence of what my mom has always encouraged in me. She has always supported any path we have found ourselves going down. She has always done everything she could do to help us achieve our goals, to get us where we wanted to be. She has been encouraging, supportive and proud of us the whole way.
Mother's Day is still a few days away- but I think it's such an important day of the year. So, mom, this year, I wish we could go back in time, make breakfast for you and bring it into your bedroom early on Sunday morning. But, since I can't be there- I hope you know that you are loved, cherished and honored, every day of the year!

Random Ramblings

I don't have much to update, we really have been up to much lately. Easter break ended and now we are just back to our normal schedule, and just relaxing on the weekends. Harrison has the STAR testing for the next 10 days at school. The No Child Left Behind Act has so severly increased the need for the students to grade high on the STAR test that the kids are nothing less than having nervous breakdowns- even in 3rd grade. It's getting pretty freakin' ridiculous with this nonsense. Seriously, why does my 8 year old need to know how to add and subtract fractions, decimals and do extremely difficult long division. What else is there going to be to learn after 3rd grade?! He knows everything there is to know now! Dunno if y'all experience anything similar or not. But we've been blown away by the academic expectations ever since kindergarten, when he had to be able to read short books all by himself when he was only 4!

In other randomness, I was reading this article on women.com about how women don't like to work for other women. It made me think about how competitive we, women, are some times. We just can't root for each other? Can there only be one successful women in one work place at a time? Does this happen with women, even outside of the work place? It's difficult for me sometimes, because I was the only girl among my 3 brothers. I never really had to compete against another girl, so I just never realize there was this animosity amongst us. Was this just a random sampling of women who had this opinion? Is it reflected of the real world? I work with many great, great attorneys, most of which are women. I do work for the State though, which I've heard referred to as a "women's job" by another male attorney. Still not sure what that means though....just some good food for thought.

We've seen some really good, highly recommended movies lately. If you haven't seen any of the following, go rent them:
- The Wrestler
- Marley & Me (mom, watch this movie and then call me to discuss)
- Hotel for Dogs
- Slumdog Millionaire (better then expected considering the hype)

One really good show we've been watching is Amazing Race. We really love this show- expect for the part we had to skip over because of the explicatives! Seriously, since when can you use the b---h word at 7pm on a Sunday night on prime time TV?!?! We were seriously appauled and I wrote a letter to the network. Other than that, the show is really entertaining and its a great way to show Harrison around the world and different cultures.

Okay, I think that's enough rambling for now. I just haven't updated in 2 weeks but really there's been nothing to update! We are having a good "down time" right now before summer break and many vacations start. Soon we'll be heading to San Diego, Central Coast and Las Vegas this summer. We are excited, but I'm spending plenty of tiem at the gym, getting ready for swimsuit season.

With flowers in your hair

The BEST thing about moving to NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.....being SO CLOSE to my (second) favorite city by the bay...SaN FrAnCiCsO!

We took Monday off of work- Iknow, I'm shocked as well...we BOTH took the day off, weird...

But anyway, it was the last day of spring break and we needed to do something fun.

So we took a trip to the newly renovated, and hugely hyped California Academy of Sciences.

At $25 a head, we had great expectations....which amounted to a huge let down. Well, a huge let down for James and I anyway. Harrison had a great time just being out and about with both of us and exploring a new city. We took a trip to the academy followed by the winding car ride down Lombard Street and a huge ice cream sundae at Ghiradelli Square- triple yum!

Harrison spent about 30 minutes doing this....

The Academy does have a pretty cool Coral Reef with a ton of things to look at. There's also this guy who resides at the Academy:

And yes, that guy is real! It's an albino aligator and strangely reminded me of those marshmallow rats that we got in our easter baskets in 1986- remember that Amy and Ashley? So strange...

Finished Product

Okay- so James worked VERY HARD this weekend to get the stain onto the jacuzzi and gazebo. It's a lot darker than expected, but actually looks great!

Check out the before:

And the after picture:

And now for the jacuzzi before and afters: