Face in the Clouds - Day 121

Matthew's been taking more nature photos. This one reminds me of the kind of day I had yesterday, like a thorn in my side or something...we had to have two classrooms fully checked for lice. My co-worker had 5 kids who went home, I had none, but the kids got all hyped up and weird for the rest of the day. Behavior issues had to be dealt with continuously. Ugh.



As Matthew was showing me his new flower photos, I noticed that the cloud in the upper corner looked like a face. Nicholas sees a different face than Matthew and I do, so hopefully you can see one or the other. I see it sort of facing the flower, with a 3-D nose in the center...do you see it?

No More Blossoms - Day 120

My blossoms were short lived this year. There are just a couple hanging on, the others have all been blown away by the winds. At least it's sunny out today!

Mystery Shopping - Day 119

Matthew did his fourth mystery shop today. He has another tomorrow. They have been at different video game stores, but today he got a gift card to add to his collection. They have been very good and have not let him buy M-rated games without a parent present. It's a fun way for him to make a little money.

Jasper - Day 118

Introducing Jasper, the chocolate lab mix, one of my favorite dogs in the whole world. He belongs to my parents, but he loves me. And my boys. And everyone else in the world. He knows the phrase, "the boys are coming" and will look out the window to see if we're there yet.

He gets very jealous if my grandpa's dog, Chico, gets more attention than he does (well actually, ANY attention). My favorite trick that he does is his tipping over. Jasper gets to sit on the couch, and when he's in my mom's spot, she'll just say, "Tip over", and he does to give her room to sit. It's really funny to see such a big dog do that. He usually sits with his head on my lap for part of the time we're there, but I wasn't privileged today.

Car Show - Day 117

We started the day with french toast made from the cinnamon chip bread I bought earlier in the week. Matthew thought it tasted like something we'd get in a restaurant. It really was good.

Then my dad took Owen and the boys to the car show at the Dome. Matthew was the photographer of the day. I stayed home and did stuff around the house. :)


This was one of Owen's favorite cars.

Nick and Tulips - Day 116

I was frantically searching for my new camera to take a picture of Nicholas before the Rock & Roll Tolo...guess who had it? Matthew. He was outside taking some very interesting nature photos. He sees things (and takes pictures) from a different perspective than I do. I usually find one or more of his pictures are very cool...sometimes I don't know why they are so neat, maybe the composition, or maybe the uniqueness. See how I center the subject in the middle, and try to cut out distracting long grass (the mower wouldn't start today)? Plain old boring photo (other than Nicholas looks pretty handsome). Matthew goes for something different...

...like an underneath shot or...

...just a tad off center with a cool tree behind for contrast. That's the neat thing about digital cameras...he can take as many pictures as he wants, trial and error, and if they don't turn out, we just delete them.

Change of Mind - Day 115

I was standing in line at Blockbuster, just watching the clips of old and new movies they had playing. I had chosen a Michelle Pfeiffer movie, just because a romantic comedy sounded good, but I really don't care for Ms. Pfeiffer very much...when the clips changed to My Best Friend's Wedding. So I got out of line, searched the shelves for the oldies, and found it. I haven't seen it for years, so I'm popping some popcorn and relaxing. I should probably be doing something else, like cleaning my office or finishing my guest book, but this cold has me wiped out. The movie will be just perfect. :)

Yummy Bread - Day 114

Cinnamon Chip bread from Great Harvest Bread Company is one of my favorites. I bought it a couple days ago and I'm surprised that it's not gone yet. It's yummy toasted with a touch of cinnamon-sugar on it, also when making french toast.

Two months from today is our wedding day!! :)

Matthew's Blossoms - Day 113

I'm a bit under the weather today so I'm posting one of Matthew's photos from this weekend. He's got a good eye for photo taking!

Yesterday's Flowers - Day 112

There were a bunch of pretty little wildflowers down near the creek. Yesterday I had so many pictures I wanted to share, I decided to save the flowers for today.

Snickers' Big Adventure - Day 111

Today we ventured down to the creek behind our house. Snickers led the way at times, followed at others.

He kept watch for the hawks and the bald eagle that were flying above and screeching.

Snickers showed us the preferred way to cross under the fallen tree next to the creek, although we went around a different way.

Here's a little waterfall.

And here he is at the final destination. He's one cat who enjoys being outside...

...and exploring the water, although he didn't go in this time...maybe in the summertime when it's a bit warmer. (If you've been reading my blog for long, you may remember that he went in the creek last summer.)

Owen (mostly) and I cut back some branches and berry vines, and uprooted many nettles on our hike. He also brought his GPS so we could see where in relation to the streets our trail ends. It's about 3 or 4 blocks down, which was farther than I thought.

Snowy Spring Day - Day 110

We didn't seem to have much snow here at home, at least before we left for Chehalis. Olympia seemed to have a lot and on the way home, the temperature dropped near Grand Mound and the freeway was a pile of slush. We saw an accident there in the southbound lane, probably someone looking at another accident on our side of the freeway (northbound), and she spun around (scary watching the barrier come toward our lane!) and was facing the same direction we were.

This is the view from the duplex kitchen window...it was snowing pretty hard!


The boys did more painting, this time downstairs. They were able to get the living room ceiling and walls finished before they ran out of paint. So we went to our favorite outlet store, got Matthew some jeans (hard to find size 29 waist!) and Nicholas some shorts and went for a visit to Owen's parents.

This is their dog, Sabrina. They rescued her from a shelter in Long Beach a few months ago.

My New Camera - Day 109

The camera Owen bought me for my birthday came in...isn't it pretty? I love the features it has, although I need to play with it more. My last 2 cameras have both been Olympus Stylus. This one is a 5x zoom which beats my last one which was 3x. Matthew has already played with it and loves it. I'll have him teach me what it does. Actually, I'm planning on reading the manual (at least parts of it), because I never totally figured out my last one, although Matthew could find anything instantly.

Anyone out there get snow yet? We saw a few mini-flurries, but nothing serious. It was weird to see it so late in the year.

I Love Books - Day 108

I would love to own a bookstore. Getting a big box of brand new books is fantastic! I won these for my book group through Reading Group Guides.com. In addition to the free books, we get a chat with the author.

Homework Helper - Day 107

Matthew has tons of homework to catch up on, and look! He has a helper! It's so helpful to have someone sit on top of your paper and book...

Yum! - Day 106

The grapefruits that have been at the store the last month or two have been absolutely wonderful! And at 3 for $1, you can't beat the price for a yummy, healthy dessert (even if I do sprinkle them with sugar). But I have a question...why does the first half always taste better than the second half???

WASL Supplies - Day 105

This is what was provided for us for our first WASL day today...each student got a shiny new #2 pencil complete with a smiley-face eraser, a new pink eraser, and a chocolate graham cracker for a snack. The extra yellow pencils are for those whose pencils break during testing. Only 4 more days to go...

One of My Favorites - Day 104

One of my favorite shows is back on tonight...Desperate Housewives! I've been waiting weeks for a new episode. Yea!

Letterboxing - Day 103

Today the boys and I did our first Letterboxing search. We did one nearby at the Kobayashi Preserve. From the website you can find places in your area with hidden letterboxes and try to follow the clues. The box consists of a stamp and a book and pen. You can bring along your own stamp and stamp the person's logbook and put their stamp in your book.

There were quite a few people down there today so once we found the spot where the box was, we had to go explore then grab the box on the way back. If you go letterboxing, there are lots of tree that look like this so I'm really not giving the location away.

Nicholas found this bunch of trees that make an "N".

This is the first time wearing short sleeves this year (103 days into it is rather late??). It was 76 degrees outside when we came back home!
It was a great thing to do on such a WONDERFUL, BEAUTIFUL day! Unfortunately, Matthew wasn't feeling up to par so he stayed back by the creek on a bench while Nicholas and I went exploring. I checked his temp when we got home and it was 101.2 degrees. I hope he doesn't get the crud that's going around. He's supposed to take WASL starting on Monday.

Another Card - Day 102

Nicholas is getting known as the person in the family who makes cool homemade cards. While I was at work, Nicholas made this neat card for me. I'm not totally sure how he did it, but I know he used scraps of my scrapbooking paper and an Exacto knife for parts of it. Matthew is working on a Power Point project for my birthday...it's turning out real neat! I've got great kids. :)

My Day - Day 101

Even at my advanced age (mainly meaning I'm not 7 anymore), my birthday was very fun and definitely my day. My students sang Happy Birthday to me, some made me cards, I received a lot of email birthday wishes, some phone wishes, and got some other cards, too. Owen took me to Stanley & Seaforts for dinner, which was very nice. They even gave me a card (the tall burgandy one in the back of the photo). :)

Movie, Lunch, and Cabela's - Day 100

Wow, 100 days of the year have gone by already. Normally my birthday would be the 100th day, but since this is a leap year, we're a day off. I took the day off today since my spring break was last week and the boys' week is this week. We went to see Drillbit Taylor down at the Lacey theaters (which have wonderful, comfortable, rocking seats and hardly anyone else in the theater), went to Norma's for lunch (for some reason, I always call it Frank's...not sure why), then headed over to Cabela's to see what all the fuss was about.

We didn't see anything there to buy, but it was a rather impressive store. It seems that any outdoor supply you might need, they would have. I felt funny carrying around my camera, taking photos of a STORE, but one of the salesladies came by and asked if she could take a photo of all three of us, so they must get camera people all the time. We still have some hours left of the day and we plan on trying to find the Kobayashi Preserve next.

Popcorn - Day 99

Nicholas found this popcorn in my bowl (his orthodontist says he's not supposed to be EATING the popcorn...) and thought it looked like a dragon or a griffin. To help you out, it's a side view facing toward the left and the kernel is the eye.

Berryfield's - Day 98

This is one of my favorite restaurants in Centralia...Berryfields. I love their grilled tuna sandwich and it comes with a little salad with craisins in it. Even though we had leftovers to eat, I just had to go to Berryfields for "my" sandwich. :)


I wish I were there now...I am so exhausted going back to work. It was just a normal day (other than getting a new student who doesn't speak much English) but after doing things around here all week, today at work was very tiring. Domino's to the rescue...

Bald Eagle - Day 97

I was counting on being able to see this photo enlarged, but I left my camera on the lowest setting...arghhgh! I also need a camera with a larger zoom! But it was very neat to see this guy just sitting by the side of the road in his tree. I had to turn around to go back to get his picture, and he just glanced at me (I think he was cleaning his wings). After I pulled up a bit more to get another, he flew off and joined some other eagles down below over the sandbar. The others looked young, with speckled feathers, but just as huge. What a very cool sight!

Two Cool Things About Snickers - Day 96

After this post, you may come to the conclusion that I have run out of creative ideas for daily posts!!! Snickers seems to be an easy target, as long as I don't try to flash in his face...he is quick enough to turn just at the crucial moment so my photos turn out poorly. But when I aim at his backside, he doesn't seem to mind...much.

So Cool Thing #1 - Snickers has a comet on his left side:















Cool Thing #2 - Snickers has a heart on his right side (if you look sideways):


And that's just my camera cord in the bottom corner of the photo. Although Snickers doesn't seem to mind that I take his picture (but not in his face), he doesn't always hold very still for me... so I had to be quick and no second chances, even if there was a camera cord in the shot!