Schedule Update!

So Sarah had decided she was fine with the fact that she couldn't take Drama 1 this year. She was in Spanish and enjoying it. Well, on Wednesday, Mrs. Johnson, the Drama teacher came up to Sarah and asked why she wasn't in Drama. She thought at first she was out sick and then she realized that Sarah's name wasn't on her roster. Sarah explained what happened - that she really tried to get into Drama 1 but couldn't make fit into her schedule. Now Drama 2 is by audition only. Sarah did audition but so did a bunch of other kids. The number of students chosen was small - and in fact only 3 freshmen were chosen for Drama 2. Mrs. Johnson asked Sarah if she would like to skip Drama 1 and join Drama 2! She said Sarah was the next on the list to be admitted if there had been space! Of course Sarah said YES! She probably will work tech for the first semester's show but can audition for the second semester.

It is so wonderful when another adult, completely unsolicited, recognizes the gifts of your child! Ryan and I could not be more proud of her, but dang if we'll keep trying! :-)

~ Sarah in her starring role last year, "The Surprising Story of the Three Little Pigs" ~

Sarah's First Week of High School!

After a few bumps in the road, Sarah has successfully completed her first week of high school! As she sits behind me plowing through homework, let's see how the week unfolded:

1) It began with Sarah not having a locker - well, she actually has a locker but none of the four combinations worked for her, despite multiple trips to the office. Our fingers are crossed that Mr. Wilkins will come to the rescue tomorrow!

2) Next, she had a total of three schedule changes, none of which ended up being the one Sarah wanted but...

3) It required Sarah to realize much to her dismay that Drama simply was not going to fit into her schedule. It also caused her to realize that Spanish isn't so bad and dare I say it - is quite fun!

4) It meant having tennis practice every. single. day. after school, starting on the very first day! Sigh. No one told us that it would start the first day nor were we told that Sarah would have to have "study hall" as her last class so she could leave school early to go to tennis practice (hence the need for the schedule change.) But the good news is that her coach is Mr. Folsom whom Sarah LOVES and - get this - she's on the VARSITY team. Yeah, ummm...see there's only one tennis team and the seniors don't want to be junior varsity so.... Pretty darn funny since Sarah and her friends only started taking lessons this summer!

5) It involved me realizing that Mr. Folsom doesn't always watch the clock so I should bring lots of reading materials while I wait well past the promised drop off time of 4:30. I would volunteer to drive out to Sycuan Resort to pick up the girls (Sarah, Danielle and Kelsey) but apparently the ride home with Mr. Folsom is so much fun that they don't want to miss out (something about hitting the bumps at 55 miles and hour and bouncing out of their seats and listening to music and laughing or some other nonsense....)

6) It means a pile o' homework from now until May 2010. She has Honors English, Spanish, Physical Science, Bible, World History and Algebra. Social life has gone bye-bye, though somehow she still finds time to take care of her crops in Farmville, post on Facebook and text endlessly.

7) It's made Ryan and I realize that she only has four more years until college and we need to treasure every single day with the best thing that has ever happened to us!

The end of an era - and a funny story!

When Ryan and I first got married, we decided he should have a hobby because work was pretty much all-consuming. He decided to buy a 10 gallon fish tank which he enjoyed, except when fish went belly up, which seemed to occur more often than we would like. When Sarah came along, she used to sit and watch the fish swim by (and banged on the tank enough to give them itty bitty headaches! We probably should have added Advil to their water.) A few years after we moved into our house, Ryan graduated up to a 39 gallon tank, which he's had ever since.

Now we will admit that we never had much luck keeping fish alive. We'd see pretty ones at Petsmart, bring them home and then cross our fingers. Some would do well, even sticking around for months until one day we'd notice that they'd been eaten by their so called "friends"! Now trust me - that's not a pretty picture, especially first thing in the morning when you'd go to feed them and you'd see that well, they'd already had breakfast....

Ryan started to grow weary of the work involved with the tank, especially now that he's begun his new and much beloved hobby of model railroading. We decided that the fish era was over and we'd take down the tank. There was only one problem - this set of four fish, which we've had remarkably for the past two years or so and who had grown remarkably huge refused to die!!! What to do?

We called our local aquarium store, Fountain's to see if they would take the fish. Yes, if the ph in the water was within acceptable limits they would take them and give us store credit. I didn't care about the credit, I just wanted these fish outta here! So here's how we went about capturing them: Ryan caught them in the net (eventually!) I put the cutting board between the net and the glass and we dragged them up, threw them in the bucket filled with water and put a lid on as quickly as possible. After a major fight from each one of them, we got all four in. I put some of that "Press and Seal" plastic wrap tightly over the lid of the bucket and then we added a rubber band for extra measure. Good to go, right? Well....

I sent Ryan on his way and walked back inside the house. I heard him come back and honk his horn. Apparently the fish jumped up and slit a hole into the plastic wrap! It was agreed that this was a two person job. I put a lid over the top, put my legs on the bucket and we drove to Fountain's, mercifully only a mile or so away from home.

We got there and were greeted by a very kind salesperson. She commented on how lovely the fish were. We thought that was a good sign - at least we had pretty fish so maybe they'd take them regardless of the ph balance! We waited anxiously as another employee tested the water. At this point, I was ready to tell them that we were moving to Argentina and couldn't take the fish with us and that we wanted them to go to a nice home with a big tank, lots of bubbles and plenty of love. Luckily, that story wasn't necessary as they said the water was fine. Whew! The employee took our bucket and just poured the fish into a larger bucket. We babied them and they dumped them - oh well, they're the fish experts! The employee took them back to their room filled with tanks. They had fish matching ours and set the open bucket on the floor. They added a tube of water to help the fish acclimate. We went to the counter and they calculated the store credit - $14.95 - not bad but that told us we had about $45 worth of fish! As we waited, a customer came out and said "Um...there's a fish in the back flopping around on the floor!" Yep, we could have told them that would happen but hey, they're the fish experts! Suffice it to say, we were very happy to walk out of there with the title "former fish owners". Now, to clean the tank, rocks and assorted accouterments and pass it along to our friends who have decided they want a fish tank.....

These pictures don't do the fish justice - they were HUGE - about six inches long!

The former home of our family's fish...

My new space!

I wanted to have a space all my own where I could use the computer AND scrapbook and stamp. I needed to have lots of horizontal space. We found this desk at Staples. It was only $59 and we had a $10 off coupon. My darling husband put it together, I decorated it and viola - my new space is ready for my creations! If you click on the picture, you can get a better idea of how it looks in real life! :-)

My 43rd at the Happiest Place On Earth!

And I was indeed the happiest person on Earth - okay maybe that's a bit exaggerated but.... :-) Spending my 43rd birthday at Disneyland with my amazing husband, beautiful daughter and wonderful mother-in-love - the day was just perfect! I really prayed and asked God for a day that wasn't too hot or crowded - I know, I know, God's got better things to do but...He did it! Most lines were a 15 minute or less wait and there was a nice breeze that would come through every so often.

The day started bright and early (okay so it was 8:15 when we left!). Traffic was non-existent, which on the 5 is a miracle itself. We stopped at our hotel, the Tropicana Inns and Suites and dropped off our car (which rocks because then we don't have to pay for parking!) Disneyland is literally across the street from the hotel so we were at the gates in minutes. We actually had to go to the ticket booth because I needed to turn in my reservation for my birthday ticket (during 2009, everyone is admitted to Disneyland for free on their birthday, provided they register ahead of time.) They gave me a fun special birthday ticket as well as a button with "Happy Birthday Molly" on it (which I cannot for the life of me find at this moment...sigh). And then we were off!

I actually brought my bear, Benjamin Franklin Neal Bear along with me and his tales and view of the Magic Kingdom can be found here.

Our family had an amazing time. We managed to stay until almost 11:00 with Space Mountain as our last ride. And boy is that a last ride indeed - in the dark with loud music and hurtling through the air at speeds that I'd rather not know - well, it was a great way to end my first day as a 43-year old (semi) adult! :-)


At the entrance of Disneyland


Ready for the Matterhorn!


Just in time to see the clock in "It's A Small World" do its thing!




They added Disney characters to "It's a Small World". Here's Peter Pan and I just missed Tinker Bell with him!


Grandma and Granddaughter!


Benjamin looks a little nervous about the tea cups!



Benjamin and I in front of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride




In front of the iconic Castle!




With Cinderella's Fairy Godmother!


Awww...Daddy and Daughter....


Ryan and Benjamin go for a ride on the Mark Twain


Me and Sarah getting ready for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad!


Ryan and his dear Mom!


That lollipop looks a bit big S!


Miss Sarah and her friend Pooh!


And with the whole family...


And Tigger too!


And let's not forget Rabbit!


In front of the sign welcoming all to celebrate at the Happiest Place On Earth!


Ready to do battle with Emperor Zurg in the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster!


Hmmm...they look awfully similar....


Here we are gearing up for Autopia!






What a wonderful day! Disneyland - we'll be back!

S-Q-U-W-E-A-L!!!!

We FINALLY got a new iMac!! WOOHOO!!!

We had to replace the old one because:

1) it did not have Intel
2) it was before the dual core processor (whatever that means - Ryan says that's important)
3) it did not even have enough juice to run iWeb any more (not even to start it up)
4) it crashed frequently
5) it ran out of hard drive space
6) if the computer crashed, we could risk losing everything
7) it was not fond of my over 10,000 pictures in iPhoto and
8) it would overheat so badly that you had to put it to sleep any time you weren't using it!

Because I work for a university, I receive a special educational discount from Apple. And if that weren't enough - everyone who buys a Mac receives a FREE iPod Touch!!

I am super excited at the prospect of (hopefully!!) getting an iPhone when our cell phone contract is up next April. Ryan's told me that he's not that interested in an iPhone (well he is but not the price nor the monthly fees for Internet services). Since the iPod Touch has everything the iPhone has except a phone, he can have this and then just use a regular cell phone (do they make those any more??) He can use the iPod Touch to access the Internet any place there's free WiFi so he'll be able to check his mail and surf the net. So you see, I get a new iMac and he gets an iPod Touch - it's a win-win situation! :-)

The only (slight) problem was that we were limited to what the bookstore had on their shelves - we couldn't have them build a new iMac for us. Because of this, we ended up with the GINORMOUS 24" monitor! It's kinda wacky to have something so large (we only have a 32" tube TV for heaven's sake!) but I think we'll get used to it. At least our eyes won't be straining to see the fine print!

Homer is doing his best "Vanna White" impersonation!

Already bedecked with bears

Oh and lest you think Sarah does not get something out of this - Ryan's going to clean our old Mac of all the extra data and give it to her for her exclusive use. The one caveat is that it is NOT going in her bedroom. We trust her implicitly but we certainly do NOT trust the dark world that can be found very easily on the Internet.

Continuing the recipes....

Sarah and I made these super nummy cookies last night!!



Chewy Butterscotch Graham Cookies

Estimated Times:

Preparation - 15 min | Cooking - 9 min | Cooling Time - 2 min cooling | Yields - 48

Ingredients:

• 2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 package (11-oz.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Butterscotch Flavored Morsels

Directions:
PREHEAT oven to 350° F.

COMBINE graham cracker crumbs, flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar in large mixer bowl until creamy. Beat in eggs and vanilla extract; gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

BAKE for 9 to 11 minutes or until set. Cool for 2 minutes on baking sheets; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Mmmmm.....Good!

We have a huge crop of tomatoes this year! It seems I go out to the garden each day and see more and more. I don't know if I should say "oh YAY" or "oh NO!" I've brought some into work and made more than a few batches of bruschetta and of course added them to burgers, sandwiches and tacos but they still keep coming! I found this delicious recipe in Reader's Digest. This soup is soooo yummy, especially paired with a salad or grilled cheese. We definitely give it three thumbs up!

Mark Bittman's Charred Tomato Bisque

Serve warm or chilled.

You Will Need
4 to 6 large ripe tomatoes
3 garlic cloves, smashed
Salt and pepper
2 or 3 tbs. olive oil
1 cup cream
1/2 cup basil leaves

What to Do
1. Heat broiler. Cut tomatoes into thin slices, and spread them out on a rimmed baking sheet; top with garlic, salt, and pepper, and drizzle olive oil over all.

2. Broil until tomatoes are beginning to blacken, turning as necessary, about 8 minutes total; remove garlic with tongs as soon as it turns golden.

3. Purée everything with cream and basil. Warm gently in saucepan or chill for a few minutes in freezer. Serve with grilled cheese sandwich or breadsticks.

Adapted from Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express by Mark Bittman (Simon & Schuster)