Thanksmas 2007

So, every year, my roommates from Freshman year of college, and I, get together and celebrate Thanksmas (Thanksgiving and Christmas). We used to celebrate them seperatley, but when we all started moving away, we started combining the two.

Since its been 10 years since we started college, we decided to make a weekend of it and get a cabin in Big Bear. It was just wonderful!!!! We had a wonderful time!!! Though the weather was real cold, I just wasn't ready for that, I loved that our house was right on the water. It made for a great view every morning.

Before I get to all of the fun stuff, let me start with the bad. The house layout was just awesome. We had like 3 little homes. However, what sucked was that a third of everything didn't work. 2 of the 5 bathrooms were unsafe to use. The 3 that were unsafe leaked, one on top of the other. And the bottom one leaked everywhere. 1 of the ovens had a gas leak and we couldn't use it. 1 sink didn't have running water. 1 refrigerator wasn't always cold. Now mind you, the bad oven, bad sink, and bad 'frig were all in 3 different kitchens!!!! Can you believe that?!?!?!?

Now for the fun. I think the best part, for me anyways, was that Ethan and Jake (who's 5) played together really really well. Nope they weren't perfect, but the fact that I didn't have to referee the whole time was just so relaxing. They played together without anyone throwing punches, without anyone crying. It was nice. I actually could sit around and just relax.

It was also great to spend time with some of the greatest friends I have. Some of them I don't get to see but once a year, so it was wonderful to spend the whole weekend with them. We are all so close, with so much history, and such a bond between us all. It was so nice to sit around and talk and laugh and catch up. Just to sit around and be girls, it was so wonderful. There was of course the crazy parts. The drinking, partying, staying up late, the crazy dares, and crazy antics that went with it. To kind of relive some of the good old days, it was great. I love those girls. And I LOVE mashed potatoes!!!! :)

What's also great about these gatherings is that all of the guys we are with get a long so well. Take 6 girls who are friends, though all very different. Now add their six boyfriends/husbands who are even more different, and imagine they have to spend 4 days together. Should be totally bad, but it went so well. They all know how to have fun and do it well together.

We also had two baby showers. Shawna and Trisha are both expecting. Shawna is expecting her 2nd on Thanksgiving and Trisha is expecting her 1st on March 4. It was fun, but it was also cool cause we made the boys play shower games. The first one was geared towards them, we made them chug beers through baby bottles, and the second everyone had to eat baby food and guess what it was. I am so sorry I made Ethan eat that stuff as a baby.

It was a wonderful weekend. I love hanging out with this group of people. We had a great time together and I can't wait to see them all again.

Swimming Like A Fish

So, Ethan and Greg have been taking a swim class. At this age (18 - 36 mos), they don't actually teach the kids how to swim, they just get them familiar with the water. They get the kids used to floating on their backs, jumping in, kicking, paddling, all while having a parent in the pool with them.
Its so cute to see Greg and Ethan doing this together. And its probably better that its Greg rather than me. I would be so nervous or scared. Greg has much more of that "Ah, what the heck attitude" so he kind of just throws him around the pool. Its good though. Ethan just loves it, and he's so not afraid. He's definitely the least afraid kid of the group. He loves to jump in, blow bubbles, and he's even putting his head under the water.

When I was watching him last week, the instructor wanted to be sure Ethan was actually holding his breath under water. So she just let him go and let him fall. I freaked out!!! And Greg, who was standing a foot away, said he had to try so hard not to reach over and just grab Ethan. But when the instructor pulled Ethan up (after what felt like an eternity for me) he was totally fine. He actually held his breath. He didn't freak out or start coughing or choking, and I was sure he was going to. He was totally fine. I was so impressed by that.
I added a little video. Its the instructors version of "the wheels on the bus"...except its "the kids in the pool". Its real cute.

Here Comes The Bride.....

As we all know, I am a huge fans of weddings. I love planning them, I love going to them, I love the wedding showers, buying the gift, all that. I have three to go to next year, and I'm so very excited for all of them.
Lauren Clum and her fiance Paul will be getting married in April. The 26th to be exact. That is a great time of the year (I should know, that date falls right between mine and my sister's anniversary.) I'm sure there is going to be a great guest list for this one, some people who I may not even have seen for a while.
Then in June, the 14th to be exact, my baby cousin Stephanie is getting married. I say baby cousin, but she's not. In fact, I'm the oldest cousin, so they all are baby cousins to me. But she is the baby girl of the group of us that grew up together. I have not met her finace yet, but I do get to meet him when she comes home for Christmas. Steph is in the Army, so its kind of hard cause she's not here for us to talk wedding stuff all the time. But she is getting married here, and I can't wait to see her walk down the aisle.
Then....here's the big one....or should I say the new one....Michal and Ed are getting married next year!!!!! For those of you who don't know, Michal is a sorority sister of mine from SSU. We went to Sonoma together and got real close. I even convinced her to get a job at WAMU, which is where I was working at the time. And she did. Well, while working at WAMU, I met Ed, and we ended up working at the same branch and living together. From there, Ed and Michal met, then years later, started dating. Well, Ed proposed to Michal this past Friday, and I am just so excited.
Greg and I were talking about them the other day and how perfect they are for each other. They are just so much alike, so laid back, have the same interests. Not only that, but they were friends for so long before dating, it was just a great foundation for their relationship. I just can't say enough how happy I am for them. And I'm sure they are getting to have an awesome reception cause Ed and Michal are always looking for the next great, big party!!!

Tainted Love

So my birthday was on Saturday, and MAN, WHAT A GREAT DAY IT WAS!!!! I didn't do much in the morning or afternoon. I did get a lot of phone calls, text messages, and birthday cards. And I know its all very little, but it is so much fun!!! It makes me feel so special. I ate lunch with Ethan and Greg, just at home. But as soon as Ethan was done, he says "Mom, I'm going to sing Happy Birthday now....Happy Birtay to you, Happy Birtay dear YOU (pointing to me), Happy Birtay to you!" It was absolutely adorable.
Greg and I dropped Ethan off at my Uncle John and Aunt Jodie's house and then took BART into the city. We were checked into the hotel, Club Quarters, by 4pm. The hotel was real nice, especially for the price. And the best part, on each floor, they have these little stations with empty bottles of water at the top, and then a "tap" on the bottom, so you can bottle your own water - for FREE!!! I thought that was just too cool.

We went downstairs at 5pm for dinner at the Elephant and Castle Pub and Restaurant. We had a very large group of 18. It was great. And I got lots of presents!!! That made me excited too. I really didn't expect that, so it was a nice surprise. I really thought I was too old to get presents. The food was really good too. I had their chicken pot pie, and so did three other ladies at the table. It came with red mashed potatoes and gravy, and it was absolutely wonderful. And I just love chicken pot pie, so to have it really good was just great! I tried Michal's meatloaf too, which was really, really good. And I really wanted to try Greg's fish and chips, but he literally at it all in like 5 minutes, so I didn't get the chance. But he says it was so good he really considered having a second.
After that, we went over to Bimbo's 365 Club. I totally scored getting an extra ticket so my brother and his "friend" could come with us. We got inside and happened to be the first ones in there and so we nabbed three tables against the wall that were up on this platform and bordered off. It was great. Total primo spots and since it was bordered off, it kind of felt like we had VIP status. It was awsome.

The concert was great, of course. If you've never heard of the cover band Tainted Love before, you can go to their website taintedlove.com. You can hear some of their music on the website. They have two guys and one girl singer so they do a HUGE variety of 80's music. I think my favorite was "Take Me Home Tonight". I just LOVE that song. And since we had the bordered off tables, we could dance without having to get into the sweaty crowd.

The highlight of the night had to be when this guy tried to fight us!!! The three tables, like I said, were bordered off with two entrances into it, one between the left and middle table, and one between the middle and right table. Well, I was sitting at the left table when a friend, Kim, showed up late, so I told her she could sit at the right table cause, at the time, no one was sitting there. Well, when Kim sat there, this guy, who kept standing against the border, started talking to her and pointing to the extra chairs. He left, so I walked over and said "Was that guy trying to sit in our chairs." And Kim said "Yeah, he wanted him and his girlfriend to sit there. He said he saw two girls leave, so he was going to take them. I told them you guys had these seats reserved." Well, the two "girls" that were sitting there were Jessica and her BOYfriend Mike. When they came back, they sat with us.

Well, next thing we know, the guy comes back with a BOUNCER!!! The Bouncer says "What's the situation here?" We were like, "There's no situation." Then all of a sudden the guy starts flipping out yelling at us. He is leaning OVER the border, yelling at the top of his lungs, pointing his finger at me, Kim, and Jessica, just screaming at the top of his lungs "You guys are liars, you can't reserve these seats, I was waiting to sit there, I saw two girls leave, You guys lie, That's bullshit, I was waiting for these seats, Let me finish." Just going balistic. We of course tried to plead our case to the bouncer, but this guy was just flipping out. Then comes Erica out of nowhere, yelling back at the guy. Then I see Greg finally turn around and see the guy yelling at us and he starts walking over and I'm thinking "Oh crap." And the whole time, the guy just keeps going on "You guys are lying, This is bullshit, You are all crazy" all of this stuff. Finally, Jessica stands up and says to the bouncer, "I'm sober, so I will talk to you and not to him." She takes the bouncer over to the usher, who had been talking to Jessica all night, and tells her what's going on. The usher tells the bouncer how we had been there all night, and the bouncer tells the guy to buzz off. So the guy walks off, totally mad, and THEN, walks over to the sound check guy and tells him what's going on like he's going to be able to do something. It was just hilarious. Yet totally crazy. The guy was just totally wack-o and totally flipping out. It still makes me laugh.

Greg and I ended up leaving the concert around 12:30, walked ALL the way back to our hotel, which was a mile away, ordered pizza, at that at like 2 in the morning, and then passed out. I did end up throwing up (I had 1 1/2 Jack and Cokes, and 1 1/2 Vanilla Stoli and Cokes - at that was 2 1/2 drinks too many). But it was still great and I had a blast. It was so much fun and I really can't wait to do it again!!!

The hardest part of motherhood

Sorry its been a while since I've had a post. Here is why....

There is a lot to deal with when you are a mom. It feels like every six months, Ethan goes through a new stage. You finally learn how to get him to sleep, then he suddenly doesn't want to go to bed at a reasonable bed time. You finally get him to sit down at the dinner table, then he suddenly doesn't care to eat anything you serve him. Its constant frustration and struggle. Don't get me wrong, there are a million more good things then bad, but the bad - well, they make motherhood a very difficult job.

The hardest part though is when your child is sick. Ethan had his first hospital stay 2 weeks ago. The week, well it began on a Saturday, started out with really bad diarrhea, and a mild fever. (Something that I never knew until I had a kid, babies can have a temperature of like 103, and doctors don't get worried. You hit 104, and they want to see you, but up until that point, the kid is basically fine. If I had a temp. of 103, you would think I was dying!!!)

At first I figured it was a simple bug and he would get through it. But then he started to complain that it hurt when he peed. Then on Tues, he was so lethargic, and he has never been like that, and so I began to worry.

The hard part about a kid being sick at this age is that they can't fully express how they feel. As a mom, you want nothing more than to know what's wrong. But if you're child can't tell you, you don't know what to do to fix it, and all you want to do is fix it.

So I called his doctor and he ordered some urine tests and luckily, I got Ethan to pee right into the cup. The doctor called Wednesday and said that the results came back fine. But, there was blood in his stool now. Actually, Greg and I thought we started noticing the blood on Monday, but it didn't look like normal blood, so we figured it was something he ate. We should have gone with our natural instinct. The doctor ordered some stool tests, and called us Thursday to say there definitely was blood in his stool. The other tests he ordered would hopefully tell us if there was an infection or what-not. However, with us ordering the tests on a Thursday, we would have to wait until Monday to get the results. ARGH!!!

When our doctor called us on Friday to see how Ethan was doing, his condition hadn't changed. So the doctor suggested actually come in. We went in about 3:00pm. First he had to go to the lab to have blood drawn. (I took my dad with me cause I hate watching them poke my son, it makes me want to cry) Then we had to go to x-ray, which took forever. By the time that was done, we went to our doctor's office, but because it was so late, we had sit around over 30 minutes to wait for the overnight clinic to start. We finally got to see the doctor, who wanted to admit Ethan into the hospital. They wanted to keep him over night to observe him. This way they could rule out anything serious. There was 85-90% chance Ethan had some sort of bacterial or viral infection, in which case he would be fine. But the doctors couldn't know that until the stool tests came back on Monday. There was a 15-10% chance it was more serious than that. They were afraid it might be this thing where your intestines kind of telescope itself, going inside of itself. Its common in kids from 18 months to 3 years. The only way to rule that out was to observe Ethan when he had pain and to actually see a stool right when it came out.

So I agreed and Ethan and I were finally sitting in his hospital bed at 8pm. Part of me was so scared cause here was my son, my little, little boy, sitting in this hospital bed with this little hospital gown, and all of this hospital equipment and even though I felt like nothing was really wrong, there was still that chance. But part of me just couldn't help and smile cause he just looked so darn cute in that hospital gown. (I even stole it cause it was just to darn cute.) But like the title says, this is the hardest part of being a mom. The waiting, and not knowing, and just praying. Sure, the praying makes me feel better, but I would rather not have to pray that my son is all right.

By the next morning, Ethan had a "normal" poo, and there was only traces of blood in it, so the doctors were happy and ruled out the serious possibility. When Monday came around the doctor called to let us know that it was a bacterial infection, called campylobacter which people get from eating contaminated food or milk, very similar to salmonella. The doctor didn't put him on antibiotics cause he was already on his way to doing a lot better. And it took only 2 more days for him to be perfect again.

I wish I could say that this experience has made me a lot more patient - that I no longer get frustrated with him or mad at him, but I'm only human, and doing this 24-7 proves that. But there are times when I'm tired and I don't want to play, and he just really wants to, that I remember him sitting in that hospital bed. All it takes is that memory for me to get up and join him. Cause if that one hospital stay is the worst thing I have to go through with him, I am one lucky mom.

The Bathroom

So, the bathroom is finally done!!! (Well, there are a couple of minor details to add, but for the most part its done.)
In case you have never seen our bathroom before, this is what it looked like when we bought the house. It had this really inconveniently placed sink with wood cabinet. Not very pretty at all. And this large medicine cabinet. Again, not very pretty, but it was very useful. There was no color in the room. Oh, not unless you count the fact that the sink was ivory and the toilet was white. Who does that?
This is what it looks like now: There is the new shower curtain that we picked out first, and then we decided on the rest of the color scheme from there. We chose to do beige and sage green stripes on the wall, which I did all by myself. We took out the old sink and put in a new pedestal sink. LOVE IT!!!! We added a chrome faucet so the rest of the accessories were white and chrome.

We put in a little cabinet since we lost the storage space from our medicine cabinet. We did leave the toilet the same, and in case you can't tell, the pedestal we picked matches the toilet. We added new towels that matched the shower curtain, put in those great white/chrome towel racks, replaced the light over the mirror, and replaced the mirror. I love them all!!! Greg also put in a great new chair rail and a new base board. He is SO handy!!

And we even replaced the floor ourselves. It used to have ugly linoleum. So we decided to tile it. If you ever want a room tiled and you think about doing it yourself, DON'T!!! That is literally back breaking work. Its hard, time consuming, and tiring. Sure it looks nice, but if you were to walk on it barefoot, you would feel the unevenness of it all.

It never ends.....

The house projects never end when you are a homeowner. Man! Right now, we are in the midst of well, EVERYTHING!!! This weekend we emptied out the spare bedroom, and pulled up on the carpet. Then tomorrow, Dan, the floor man, will be here with the wood for a brand new floor. By the end of next week, the floor will be totally ready and that room will be ready to decorate!!! Once the floor is done we then are going to turn it into a playroom for Ethan. Yeah!!! I am so excited. I finally get to rid my living room of all kid's toys!!
The other big project we are working on right now is the back yard. We are in the process of getting cement quotes for our backyard and driveway. We tore out half of our deck, the part that had the hot tub, so we have so much space back there now. And once its all cemented, Ethan will have so much more room to play.
The projects we already finished this year are: The Bathroom, we totally redecorated it, from new flooring (tile), to a new sink (pedastal), new paint, new chairrail, new mirror, new light fixture, new cabinet, new towel racks, and new towels; The Plumbing, we had our old galvinized plumbing replaced with new copper piping. That, I have to say, was the worst experience ever due to the fact that the first crew was completely incompetent; The Electrical Garage Stuff, we needed some electrical work done in our garage, we had the switch fixed so you can actually turn the light on now, we put in an exterior light on the outside of the garage so now there is light in our back yard, and a few other things. This was the second worst experience because the electrician was anywhere from 1 hr to 5 hrs late getting here each day. That can just ruin your reputation.
Once all of these are done, I think we'll paint the kitchen next.....