Sea World

Chistian's dad got our family tickets to Sea World this Christmas. We decided that we would go on Monday after Christmas between rain storms while the kids were still on break. Big mistake. The place was packed. Or it's been years since we went last, maybe it is always that packed now? They have also replaced a lot of the nice exhibits. My favorite was always the Manatee Rescue exhibit but they moved that to Florida earlier this year. Now they seem to be replacing real exhibits with a bunch of carnival rides.

Sure the kids think they are fun, but that's not what we are going to Sea World for. We can catch those at Castle Park...for a lot cheaper, I might add.

We were only able to catch the Shamu show. The trainers don't even get into the tank with the orcas anymore. The dolphin show got filled up the three times we attempted to go see it. Hopefully we can figure out when a better time would be to go again to catch the things that we missed before our tickets expire...we'll see.

The crowds started to disperse when most of the shows stopped and it started getting colder. Christian and Emily decided to jump on the Shipwreck Rapids towards the end. Caitlyn wanted nothing to do with it, so I stayed out with her. They got soaked. And boy were they cold afterwards! That is a fun ride but I don't know if I will be able to get Caitlyn on it even in warmer weather.

Needless to say, we were exhausted by the time we got home.

More on Christmas Day

In the afternoon, we headed out to my sister's house to spend time with my family for Christmas. My sister's in-laws were planning to join us for dinner, so we went early to exchange presents before they all got there.

Yup, a ton more presents for the kids. The girls were so excited to get pillow pets from my sister. They just love those things for some reason. My mom crocheted all the girls a little shrug. She's been taking classes. They are a lot fancier than the one I attempted for Emily last Christmas.

We had another huge feast after the rest of her guests arrived. And the girls love playing with their cousins. But most of the night was spent on their WII. Christian and I have not yet given in to getting them any kind of gaming system. So, they never turn down an opportunity when they are given the chance.

Luckily, the girls caught a quick nap in the car on the way over. It was quite late by the time we headed home for the night. But that didn't stop Emily from having a sore throat and feeling generally sick by that time. Of course, she was fine up until we told her that it was time to go home.

Here is the kids annual Christmas picture.

Christmas Eve

We did our usual Christmas Eve get together with our friend Marian. The girls were so excited for their Auntie Marian to spend the night with us. She arrived in the late afternoon with a gigantic rib roast for dinner. It ended up to be big enough for three dinners! We had to take a long walk afterwards!

After the kids got off to bed, we put out and wrapped a couple of last minute odds and ends. Of course, we stayed up way too late hanging out and talking.

Christian still got up in the morning with Emily to go for a little jog. Apparently, Marian has talked us into extending our weight-loss bet a bit. Unfortunately, it was not enough to get either Marian or I up and out to go jogging with them after staying up so late. I still really need to make sure that I get enough rest. I am deathly afraid of getting sick again.

The kids were so patient Christmas morning, waiting to open more presents. Guess what Santa brought them?

But with all the presents that Christian's mom sent them plus all the presents that their Auntie Marian brought, they did not miss opening ours (although we had a token gift left for them) since they had already opened ours early this year.

And for breakfast, we had our traditional belgian waffles! After cleaning up a little of the mayhem, I had to start making food for Christmas dinner with my family and Marian had to head back to take care of her dogs and to get ready for her own Christmas dinner plans.

Caldwell Christmas

On Saturday, we headed down to San Diego to celebrate Christmas with Christian's side of the family. The girls have been excited and waiting for it all week.

Their cousin Michaela is just a couple of months older than Emily and the three of them seem to get along really well. The girls love getting together so that they can play.

Plus, they got to open more presents. How can it get better than that?

The only problem was that their cousins just got over the flu. When we got home, Emily threw up...twice. Oh joy for us. Like we really need another bug floating around the house.

Christmas comes early for the Caldwell Girls

The girls started opening Christmas gifts just after Thanksgiving this year. We put up the Christmas tree the Saturday after Thanksgiving so that we can take their yearly Christmas picture and so that I can get to work on our Christmas cards. I even considered taking a family picture this year (instead of just the girls) but since I had a cold and looked like Rudolf, I scratched that plan pretty quick.

Anyway, after we put up the tree, we let the girls open up one of their gifts. It was, of course, their new Christmas dresses (for their, eh hem, Christmas pictures).

Neither Christian, nor I had too much patience for a long picture taking session as we were stressed out about our car and sick. There is always something but I am never entirely happy with the Christmas picture we end up with. It gets worse when you fix it the way you want it and they "color correct" your picture for you and screw it up again. So it is a bit redder than it is supposed to be. Shutterfly used to let you turn that option off but I don't think they give us that option anymore or have cleverly hidden it so that I have not been able to find it. I may have to switch to Kodak instead next year.

The week after, they were to get the second part of their Christmas present, which is a cute little DVD about the Nutcracker. They show scenes from the ballet while narrating the story. In between acts, they describe and show the girls little ballet moves. Caitlyn got the Swan Lake one last year or so and the girls loved it.

So week three, they got present number three, which was tickets for the Nutcracker presented by the Riverside Ballet Co. at the new Fox Theatre.

Unfortunately, I didn't really get any pictures. But the girls got to wear their new Christmas dresses and were able to follow along with the story because they knew what was going on from the video.

It worked out pretty well. We had second row seats and the girls were really excited. Christian and I were a bit put out though because it was really difficult to find parking since it was so crowded plus the city closed the only free lot in the area to put up some kind of hotel?

Plus, the orchestra was not that good. They sounded like a bunch of RCC students instead of a real symphony orchestra. But the girls didn't notice and had a great time.

I had also found out a week ago that we could have gotten tickets to the Friday night show for FREE! I was less than pleased as we spent a bit more for their presents this year than I would normally have liked to but we really wanted them to experience going to the ballet...and seriously, they needed another toy like they need another hole in the head...that is in the opinion of this mother, and do not reflect the views and opinions of my daughters!

That evening, was our ward Christmas dinner and the girls were in the little Primary program.

They also got to see Santa who came by at the end to visit all the kids.

Emily didn't know what to ask Santa for but Caitlyn definitely wanted a Nutcracker!

Honor Roll

Both girls made the Honor Roll this first trimester. The scheduling was a bit different and a little hard for me this time though because I'm still pretty tired all the time and I had to stay for quite a few hours to catch both ceremonies so I just helped out in Caitlyn's classroom in between instead of driving back and forth.

None of the pictures usually turn out that great but at least I captured the event and we are so proud of the hard work our girls put in every year.

Emily gets an added prize for meeting her AR goals. They have some special pirate themed assembly for them after lunch but I could not stay any longer to check it out. 

Thanksgiving Week

The girls had the whole week off plus the previous friday for parent teacher conferences so it's been a very busy month.

We visited with Emily's teacher a few weeks prior to this to try to get an idea about how they are differentiating her work since she is in the Gate program now. We had not noticed much difference at all and were a bit frustrated. They do a few little things with her but since her class has Gate kids and some of the kids that are really just struggling to keep up in 2nd grade, they just haven't given her much to challenge her. She has some reading groups with some of the kids that are more on her level but her math still seemed to be stuff she worked on in the 1st grade. So in the end, they decided to let her sit in with the 3rd graders during math time and she seems to be doing pretty good in there.

Caitltyn's teacher wasn't going to have time to meet with us either since she is doing fine in school as well but some slots opened up and she invited us to come in anyway. I've been very happy with Caitlyn's kindergarten teacher so far. I've always had to push Emily's teachers to try to challenge her. Emily is book smart but lazy by nature so I need to keep her on her toes to keep her out of trouble. Plus, we pay our tax dollars like everyone else and I don't see why I should send my kids to school so they can just sit there and fiddle their thumbs just because they are doing well. But with Caitlyn's teacher, I haven't said a word. Caitlyn generally stays out of trouble on her own and her biggest challenge has always been coming out of her shell. But her teacher knows that she is capable and has gone out of her way to give her more challenging homework, set her up with reading tutors and has even sent Caitlyn to sit in with the 1st graders during math time to see if she can handle it. I've been so impressed with her and am thankful that there are still a few caring teachers out there!

For Thanksgiving, we had dinner with my family at my mom's house. I made pumpkin pie from fresh pumpkins and a buttermilk sweet potato pie plus some garlic mashed potatoes to bring to the dinner. Everything turned out pretty good. Dinner went off without any family drama, so that is always a good thing. But when we finally packed up and headed home, the check engine light came on in my car and we got home on a whisper and a prayer. It was way to cold to be stranded out on the side of the road with a couple of tired kids.

Christian had planned to work on my car the next day anyway, but he needed to fix the transmission that we've been having problems with on and off for a year now. Our neighbor had planned to help him with the job as it was not going to be very easy. They figured out that the problem with the engine was due to one of the fuel injectors. They managed to pull off the transmission pans to change the transmission filter and fluid. Christian had flushed the transmission fluid twice already in the past two months trying to get ready to put on the new filter. We could not get a replacement gasket for one of the smaller pans so our neighbor helped us make one. So far everything is working great but it will take time to see if it really fixed the problem since it was always intermittent.

The next day, Christian also managed to flush the radiator which also needed to be done some time ago. Next will be my spark plugs. We have been far to busy to keep up with the maintenance on the vehicle but we simply can't put any of it off any further as problems keep coming up because of it. Luckily Christian has the knowledge and experience to be able to do it all himself but it is also nice to have a former mechanic as a neighbor!

After Christian worked his butt off fixing my car, we took some time to set up our Christmas tree so we can get working on this year's Christmas cards. It's the girls' favorite thing to do but I have to admit that it takes a heck of a lot of patience on our part to get it all done.

I've had a really bad cold since the kids came home from school...I know, what's new? I've been sick with one thing or another since July. I never did go to the doctor and thought I could do it on my own. I mean, after surviving pertussis and pneumonia, nothing else seemed that serious. But having my immune system assailed by one thing or another since that fateful July had seriously compromised it. And in the end, it was the common cold that kicked my butt. I couldn't hardly breath by Saturday night. It was a miserable night at that. I haven't had so much trouble since all this mess began and by Sunday morning I threw in the towel and made Christian pack up the kids and take me in to urgent care. Fun, huh? Three hours later, I find out that I have infections from my head to my lungs. I got two shots. An antibiotic and a steroid. Plus 3 more prescriptions for more stuff for the rest of the week.

I'm not feeling one hundred percent yet but I can breathe again, and that is always a good thing!

Flash Back

It's strange, but Christian and I have really been together for 21 years now. In some ways it seems like it was only a couple of years ago that we took that picture (though we look like kids there). And in other ways it seems like a lifetime ago...at least the life before we settled down and had kids. We've been reminiscing a lot lately since our wedding anniversary. Remembering all our adventures which led us to where we are now.

I hope to have as many good memories of raising our girls as we reminisce in another 21 years after the kids have grown and are starting their own families!

Today

Today is our 13 year wedding anniversary.

Happy Anniversary Christian!

Over the weekend, our friend Marian came out to celebrate Christian's birthday with us so Christian got an extra birthday dinner and more presents. I tried again in vain to find Christian's missing Birthday present.

It was really starting to bug me. I had to double check my receipt to see if I actually really bought it. I was starting to seriously question my sanity. Today, I ransacked the house again looking for it. Guess what? I found it!!! Looks like I got an anniversary gift, heh heh. Senile or just cunning...hmmm (don't answer that).

Christian's Birthday

This past weekend, we drove down to San Diego to visit with family. Since we have not been there in a while, we had lots to catch up on. We celebrated my birthday, Christian's birthday, our niece's birthday and her baptism as well!

We were exhausted and didn't come home until after midnight.

But yesterday was Christian's actual birthday, so we had a nice dinner on our own after Christian got home from work. The girls got Christian some hamster accessories. They were so excited about them.

I'm convinced that I am losing my memory and my mind. I couldn't find any candles for his cake and I literally lost one of his presents. I had been collecting them and hiding them away until the proper time. Well, I hid one of them too well. So well that I could not find it myself. I tore the house apart twice looking for it to no avail. Hopefully I will find it in time for Christmas!!!

More on Halloween

Saturday, October 30th was our wards annual Trunk-or-Treat.

There were treats, games, movies and a hot dog dinner to be had. This was probably the only trick or treating the girls were going to get this year as Halloween is on a Sunday this year.

After we made our rounds in the parking lot, we loaded up for another party at a friend's house. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures. The girls took off to play with their friends as soon as we arrived and Christian and I were too tired to chase after them. Plus, we wanted to catch up with our own friends. I was kind of sad though, I wanted to take a family picture since Christian and I were dressed up as well, but kind of forgot about it until it was too late.

We were up from about 12:30 to about 4:30 am the night before because of the stupid college students partying across from us. The police didn't want to take any responsibility for actually upholding the law, so we hardly got any sleep, had a bunch of college students practically in their underwear walking up and down our street being obnoxious and peeing in our yards and drive ways and throwing their trash everywhere. Before Christian and our next door neighbor broke up their party, they drove by speaking into their bull horns to make sure they were extra annoying.

And what did the police do after at least 3 houses in the immediate vicinity called? They finally came after an hour and after Christian had to call a second time and after most of the party goers were already run off. They told the college students that their neighbors were "unhappy" with them and that they should come talk to them. Yeah, all their fake insincere apologies in the world will not bring back the lost sleep, nor will it get rid of the anxiety and frustration.

The police complained that they had 14 other parties to break up but they never do anything to prevent the problems or uphold the law. This is not the first nor second time we have had to call the police do to break up parties in the middle of the night by these college students. The city said that they can issue fines from $1000-$1500 to both the renters and the owners of the houses but the police are obviously reluctant to do it. No wonder they have 14 other calls to attend to. No one respects their laws and no one upholds them. What a joke.

Pumpkins

On Thursday before Halloween, I went to volunteer in Caitlyn's classroom. Since they had been learning about the growth cycle of pumpkins and were having a pumpkin patch for the kindergardeners this year in lieu of having a field trip (due to lack of funds, but suspiciously, the 2nd graders managed to go to Lego land earlier this month), the teacher decided to have a pumpkin carving demonstration so that they can feel the inside of the pumpkin. She was wielding this big carving knife and had some trouble cutting the pumpkin open. Since the other mothers were turning a bit white, I decided to take over and carve the pumpkin for her. I ended up having to carve two pumpkins. I don't think any of the other adults have done one themselves before!

The teacher had a raffle for the big pumpkin and Caitlyn won it and was able to take it home. (Somehow I wonder if the raffle was fixed). Anyway, she was thrilled to get it and when she went to the pumpkin patch the next day, she  went determined to find a nice pumpkin for her sister.

So not only did Emily get to go to Lego land this year, she also ended up with Caitlyn's pumpkin from the pumpkin patch.

Caitlyn has always been generous and patient with her sister but she always continues to delight and surprise us. What's more, since Caitlyn's class had such a huge party on Friday and she came home with nearly double the loot as Emily, she also decided to share a few of her trinkets and treats with her sister. I only hope that some of Caitlyn's selfless generosity will one day rub off on her big sister. I love the great example that Caitlyn is to us all.

Halloween

On Friday, the girls had their Halloween celebrations at school. First there was the "pumpkin patch" for the kindergardeners after lunch.

Followed by costume parades around the school. And ending with Halloween class parties back in each classroom.

Man, there was a lot of sugar floating around. Needless to say, I was exhausted by the time we got home.

Vacation - part deux

We finally made it to the Imperial Sand Dunes shortly after noon. We made pretty good time actually. We found Dave's camp site with no problem. He was at the hospital with his wife but was due back shortly. We broke out lunch and met some of his friends and then took off to take a look around the dunes. The place is huge. Sand as far as the eyes could see. The girls were so excited to play in the sand. There were a lot of people there but apparently not as crowded as this coming weekend will be.

When we got back to camp, Dave had returned. We got an update about his wife's condition as well as a look at her x-rays and a gruesome picture of her leg after it had happened. He took everyone for a quick ride in his buggy. The girls were so excited. They have been talking of it for weeks since he had been working on tuning up his buggy and working on some of his friend's buggies as well in the weeks prior.

Dave was going on one big run with his friends that day as he had not gotten to do very much since the accident. Christian was lucky enough to go with them. Dave used to race off-road motor bikes for about 5 years in his earlier youth and pretty much grew up driving OHVs so they were not just piddling around out there. They went on some pretty big dunes. They also went to watch some of the people racing. Christian got some neat videos of Dave and his friends racing as well. It doesn't look nearly as fast as they were going in the video though. They said that they were going about 120 miles per hour.

The girls and I played cards, did a little reading and exploring while they were away. I nearly got us lost at some point as it is so difficult to get your bearings out there. Christian got a chance to drive the buggy when they got back so he took the each of us out for a little bit on the flats. One of the groups in our camp made chili for everyone so we had a nice dinner and got to sit around a bonfire for a while. His friends were super nice and hospitable. At some point a few of the older group members went off to bed and the younger ones planned a night run. Christian went out with them again. He had a blast but he said that it was a little scary. They went out in search of a big bowl in the middle of some of the dunes and although the moon was nearly full, they can really only see what is in front of them because of the bright headlights on the vehicles.

I got the girls to bed when they took off. It was pretty late and Caitlyn had been sleeping on my lap for a while already. Even Emily was starting to get pretty tired. After the two outings he went on with them, he said that he was covered head to toe in dust and didn't want to get sand everywhere and decided to sleep out by the fire instead. I don't think he got much sleep that night but he was having so much fun that it didn't get to him. It got pretty cold when the fire died down.

After breakfast and breaking down camp, Dave let Christian drive us around a bit more in his buggy while he packed up his RV. Christian got more confident in driving it around and took us on some of the smaller dunes close by. It was pretty fun.

We left camp before noon. Most of the others had left already and Dave was getting ready to pick up his wife from the hospital to transport her home.

That was the girls first camping experience and we were so glad that it went well. I had not felt so relaxed in quite a while.

Vacation - part 1

Since we missed out on taking the girls somewhere this summer and we needed a vacation really badly (however short), we decided to take a mini-vacation. This past weekend, we were invited by our neighbor to go to the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area with them and we decided to take them up on their offer. They went up the week before and the plan was to join them on their last weekend down there. We made up our mind to go at the last minute and went out to get a permit Friday morning. By Friday afternoon, however, we found out that his wife got into a serious accident on her new quad on their first full day out. She got a pretty bad break in her leg and has had two surgeries already. We almost cancelled our trip at that point as we did not want to add to any of his problems.

But in the end, we figured we would just head down anyway. We told him not to worry about us and if we met up, then great, otherwise we would see him and his wife when they made it back home.

Our first stop on our trip was the Salton Sea. Christian and I have always wanted to go there for some reason but never made it out that far.

The Salton Sea seems to be a strange mixture of beauty and repulsive land fill. I guess it had it's hey day back in the 1930's through 50's when it had some success as a resort area but has been long forgotten and neglected. With the rise in water during the 1960's and 70's, came a steady increase in the salinity level as well as the bacteria level from wastewater runoffs mainly from Mexico. So a lot of the fish in there are all dying off as well. The shore lines are littered with dead fish...so you can imagine the smell. There are the remains of an abandoned marina, rusted up boats, abandoned houses, RV's and whatever junk and trash people have dumped there or was left behind.

Even the kids were delighted and appalled at the same time with the place. After watching the water fowl and dodging dead fish along the shore line, dad showed them how to skip rocks across the water. They still had a fun time and wanted to stop by again on our way out but it didn't quite work out.

Phantom

On Saturday afternoon, we dropped the girls off with my mom for the day and we drove out to LA to watch Phantom of the Opera. I forgot to bring my camera, so I have no pictures to show for it. The show was a lot of fun for the most part but I had two major gripes about it. Although I could not reasonably expect to see Sarah Brightman playing Christine, the lady they did have playing Christine was not very good. At best, she would have been more fittingly cast as Carlotta. She only sings for Saturday matinee shows and Sundays so we were just unlucky about that. I don't know what the normal lady sounds like.

The second major gripe about the show was the venue. They use these big gigantic speakers that are more appropriate for rock concerts. Everything is amplified through these speakers. They seem to have one setting...loud. You could not clearly hear all the different voices and things that were going on because it was all muddled and competing with one another through these speakers. The venue (Pantages) also allows food and drink to be taken into the show...in fact, they are selling it to everyone on your way in. The family in back of us got there late (after the snow began) and proceeded to eat through the entire nearly 3 hours of the show (I am not exaggerating). All you can hear is them reaching into their jumbo sized candy bags every 2 minutes, jiggling their icy drinks in loud plastic cups and smacking their lips...not to mention kicking our seats every now and then as they shifted around and whispering to each other. They would have been annoying at a movie theatre. During intermission, I swear they just went out to get more junk food. And they were not the only ones in the theatre doing it...only the closest ones to us.

Other than that, we had pretty good seats. The best singers from the show was definitely the man playing the Phantom and the two theatre managers. They really made the show worth while.

After the show, we went back to Marian's house for dinner. It was so nice to have a nice quiet dinner with other adults! We really enjoyed the much needed time away from the kids. We picked them up on the way home from Grandma's house. They were supposed to be out doing a bunch of fun things that day with their cousins but apparently, their plans did not quite work out. They still had fun visiting with their cousins though.

Pet

We finally caved and picked up a new little pet for the girls. The girls were so excited. Meet Rhino...

Rhino is awesome! He's so awesome! He's... He's beyond awesome! He's... be-awesome! (Name that movie)

Behavior Charts

At the end of summer, I mentioned that the girls were driving us crazy...fighting, not cleaning up their toys, etc. When school started, things did not improve. I found myself nagging the kids over and over to get the simplest things done. It was miserable.

In each of the girls class rooms, they bribe the kids with trips to the "treasure chest" if they behave, pay attention and are not disruptive. What's in the treasure chest ranges from Halloween candy to party favors. Just cute little stuff. The girls were so excited to get to go to the treasure chest. Basically, I think they get point a day for behaving and you need 5 points to go to win your prize. Caitlyn ends up going almost every week.

Anyway, something had to change here at home so we decided to put together these behavioral charts. We reward them with points for good behaviors (i.e. making their beds, cleaning up their toys, clearing their dishes, etc) and they get negative points for bad behaviors (i.e. whining, leaving messes, lying, etc).

We filled their treasure chest with mostly dollar store type toys and craft items along with a few treats as well. We have been using this system for over a month now and I have to say, I am quite happy with the results. We started off slow and as they got the hang of it, the goal points for the end of the week went up little by little until we found a number we were comfortable with. A number that is not too difficult to attain as long as they were trying but if they reverted back to past behaviors, they would not make it. They have missed a couple of weeks here and there but overall they have been doing awesome and everyone is so much happier!

School and other stuff

Well, we finally got another kindergarten teacher on Monday. So Caitlyn's kindergarten class went from having 38 kids to 28...which is only 4 less than when she started at with 32, but it is so much better than 38! The class seems a lot more manageable now.

When we first started kindergarten, they said that the only time that they will be able to do crafts and things is when we, the parents, volunteer. But her class actually has quite a few dedicated moms and grandmothers who go in to help. But I don't think it buys them time for crafts, we usually end up helping the kids who are especially slow, who get absolutely no help at home. They can barely still write their name. They don't know their numbers to 5 or the alphabet. We give them extra help to try to get them up to speed.

In the end, I guess I am okay with that so that at least the other kids in the class will have more of a chance to actually learn something...hopefully.

Today, we were finally able to go in to pick up a copy of the initial police report. Now we have to make copies, fill out paperwork and write letters to all the companies to try to clean up all the credit fraud problems. Fun times...

On the brighter side, I have also finally gotten my act together (and enough time) to start volunteering for the FamilySearch indexing project. I've been wanting to do it since the beginning of the year but never quite got around to it. I had some problems getting started and ended up spending about an hour on the phone plus several e-mails trying to get started but due to some small glitch somewhere, it wasn't letting me on. We finally got it cleared up and it's been strangely rewarding and frustrating at the same time. It boggles the mind how historical documents were allowed to be written out with inky, smudgy pens in sloppy cursive that someone else is supposed to be able to decipher. They should have at least been forced to print!

I Fell Down and I Can't Get Up...

We've been helping a friend paint their new house the past couple of weekends. Saturday I fell off a small ladder, got a mild concussion, some soft tissue damage in one elbow and some scrapes and bruises. But luckily no dain bramage.

I'm too old for this.

Mid-Autumn Festival

A friend recommended the Chinese Moon Festival at the Heritage House. We've never gone to it so we thought we would take the girls and check it out. It was a bit crowded but we still had a good time. They had a lot of booths for crafts and things. The girls got to make Chinese lanterns and scrolls. Because there were so many people, they didn't have time to do every one of them. They learned to use chopsticks. There was a lady demonstrating how to play the guzheng. She was letting people play it but the girls were too shy to try.

There was also a lion dance (although, they called it a dragon dance, I don't think that that was technically correct) which was kind of fun to watch.

I wanted to get a couple of moon cakes to take home so the girls could try them but like I said, it was very crowded and we ran out of time for everything. They also had a high powered telescope to view the full moon but we didn't want to wait in line for it.

The full harvest moon was technically yesterday though. Traditionally, it is the time where families reunite and give thanks. I guess it would be seen as the Chinese Thanksgiving day. Even though my family is not that far away, it is too troublesome to drive home in the middle of the week just to have dinner with the family through all the traffic. Plus the kids have school still tomorrow.

Birthday

We basically celebrated my birthday early this year when Christian took the day off last Thursday so that we can spend the day together so today was like most other days. I did take the day off from volunteering at school and stuff though and had a nice peaceful day on my own.

Christian offered to take us out to dinner in the evening but I considered the cost of going out to eat again and decided to take some of that money instead to buy us a nice piece of Wild Alaskan Salmon from Costco for dinner instead. Christian came home early to help me with dinner and did all the dishes afterwards (hooray).

I forgot to mention in my previous post though that my birthday present from Marian was a ticket to see one of the last performances of Phantom of the Opera. Apparently, after 21 years and over 10,000 performances, they are finally done. I never did get to see it before, so I am really excited. Christian has seen it before but he's getting a ticket too for his early birthday present!

I also got some fun Bed Bath & Beyond dollars to fix up my bedroom a bit more of how I would like it to be. I haven't gone on my shopping spree yet. I'm still trying to decide what I want to do.

Busy nothings

I've been really bad lately about updating my blog so I'm forcing myself to make some posts so that I can record what has been going on. And I'm going to cheat and backdate them!

Last week, our friend Marian had to take off on a business trip, so we dog sat for her. She has two dogs. Christian set up some temporary fencing for them on the side of the house. Emily was so excited. She couldn't wait for the dogs to get here.

She loved to take them for walks. I had some severe allergic reactions when we went out. I don't know if it was the dogs or something in the air at the time. I've developed allergies since I started having kids and I still have not figured out what the heck I am allergic to.

I seem to be falling apart anyway. I haven't had a day of health since the beginning of July for one reason or another it seems and I'm pretty tired of it all.

I had a check up at the beginning of the year and my doctor keeps yelling at me about my cholesterol level (again). So I figured that I needed to do something about it before she puts me on some kind of medication. I decided that I was going to get in shape. I had gained a bunch of weight and have been pretty unhappy about it. Of course, we hummed and hawed about it for a couple of months before we got moving. We started with going for a jog at the base of the mountains once a week. We were pretty out of shape. We managed to start losing a few pounds but then school ended and summer started so it got a little more difficult to exercise with the kids and the heat.

But in June, while we were having having dinner with Marian, she got us to enter into this contest to lose some weight. I entered very reluctantly as I didn't see much hope. Plus I gained back a couple of pounds just eating at her house that night! But we continued with our exercise (although, still sparse) and we managed to lose a couple more pounds. After I got sick and lost my appetite for a while, I thought that it would be a great time to readjust the size of my meals when my appetite returned. That actually seemed to do the most good and I lost a few more pounds and then a few more.

Basically, I reached my goal weight by the beginning of August. Part of the terms of the contest was to keep the weight off for a month. Long story short, I won the contest! My incentive, a day off!

So, when Marian came to pick up her dogs, she came early so that she could be here to pick up the girls from school and watch them while Christian and I got to take the day off on our own. We took off Newport Beach after getting the kids off to school. We tried to go early so that we can make it to the 10:am session at the Newport Temple but as we ran into too much traffic, we were short of about 10 minutes.

We decided to visit a friend in Tustin until the next session. Luckily she was home and we were able to visit with Raena, whom we have not seen in a while. That was fun. In fact, it was the highlight of our day. After we left her house, we went to the Temple. There was at least an hour before the next session so we thought that we would have time to walk the grounds and stuff. We checked in to make sure that we could get in since the internet said that we should not need an appointment. Unfortunately, there was a stake getting ready for their stake conference that day and the session was booked. But some of the workers said that people never all show up so it would be fairly certain that we would still be able to get in since we were there early. At one point, there was even talk about them making us the witness couple but then they just forgot about us. The session started (it was not full) and we just sat there like idiots waiting. There were some other incidents that made us feel less that welcomed at the temple and we ended up just walking out in a huff. The worst Temple experience ever (Yes, worse than the last time I went to the Temple and we were attempting to take some newly baptized members to do baptisms but was turned away because of some misunderstandings, miscommunication and bureaucratic rules. Members who are all now struggling with their membership, I might add).

Anyway, we tried to salvage the day. Christian took me to lunch at the Crab Cooker for my birthday. It wasn't quite as we remembered it and could not quite enjoy ourselves anyway.

We headed home in the late afternoon. Marian got the girls to get their homework done and got a bunch of tasty things for an early birthday dinner. Christian helped prepare dinner which was cioppino and cheesecake for dessert! I also got to end the night with a candlelit bath.

Of course, Christian ended up having to take extra time off again the next day still so that we could go back to the Redlands Temple to try to erase the bad experiences I have had as of late. 

Perks of home ownership...

Us:  We need to report that we have become victims of identity theft.
Police:  Have you lost your IDs or bought a new home recently?

This is how we spent our Tuesday. Countless hours on the phone with credit reporting agencies, credit card companies and department stores where credit has been issued in our name without our permission. Between Christian and I, apparently they have racked up roughly $10,000 worth of ill gotten goods from all over the Inland Empire.

The shopping spree started on the 9th of this month. Late Monday, we got a strange set of letters from Sears saying that our applications for credit was denied due to too many inquiries into our credit. We both got two letters each from Sears. That was really puzzling to us but we didn't think too much of it initially. Some kind of mix up maybe? A bad marketing scam? I've gotten that before from a magazine telling me to pay up for a subscription that I never ordered.

After we got the kids off to school, I started calling around to find out what was going on. We started to take it more seriously and logged on to get an instant credit report from Experian. We found all kinds of recent credit racked up to stores we definitely do not have credit cards from or some places we don't even shop at. They've been at it for 5 days. Apparently, they have our names, addresses, social security numbers and fake identifications. Some stores we found were more forthcoming than others in helping us find out what was going on. A lot of them seemed to be protecting the people stealing their products and damaging our good credit and names.

It's been a nightmare. After a day of Christian missing work, me ditching the school (since I had planned to help in Caitlyn's class that day), hours on the phone and running all over town we think we have put the fires out and that they will not be able to get anything more from us but it's hard to say and our nightmare has really just begun as now we need to work on repairing the damage done.

The police say that it is very common and easy for people to steal your identity after buying a house because of all the information distributed with all the paperwork you do. We were extra paranoid about it too...refusing to e-mail confidential information, shredding and burning extra or initial copies of paper work. But the industry is filled with opportunistic shady characters and you can only do so much to try to protect yourself when they are bent on robbing you. You can't go and hide in some cave. You want a house...something to call your own and provide some security for your family.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice statistics, identity theft will soon replace drug trafficking as the Number One crime in the nation. Have any of you bought a house recently?

By the way, we had to pay for parking to file a report at the police station and we will have to go back in 10 working days to pay for a copy of the police report...talk about adding insult to injury.

Labor Day and other matters

Well, we seem to be settling into our new schedule okay. I've had to reduce the amount of time I volunteer in Caitlyn's kindergarten class or I would have to spend $65 to get finger printed and get TB tests just so that I can help out. The class has 36 kids in it now. It is a little bit less crazy in there as the rest of the kids are getting down the rules but you can't expect too much with 36 5-year-old kids. Luckily, there are a lot dedicated mothers in there who volunteer as well. Supposedly, they have gotten approval to get another kindergarten teacher so that should bring a little more sanity into the classes. We don't know how long it will take to get the teacher in there though.

Unfortunately, we don't qualify for reduced lunch this year. I can't for the life of me, figure out why. The cost of living has gone up. We have not gotten any cost of living increases. We will probably make less this year because of the furloughs and yet, we no longer qualify to get hot lunches for the kids. Packing lunch for the kids really stresses me out. In kindergarten, I had a rough time getting Emily to eat sandwiches. In fact, the yard supervisor informed us that she was throwing away her food. Nice.

Both kids are in school full days now so if they don't eat their lunch, the are going to starve. So you would expect that after starving a couple of times, that they would learn but then you underestimate the shear stubbornness of my kids. I'm actually not as concerned with Caitlyn. She actually enjoys eating sandwiches...especially if I put lettuce in them.

We had a few things we needed to do on Labor Day weekend so we didn't really get to go do anything fun. Besides, in our past experience, it isn't really worth while to travel on Labor Day weekend. It is just way to dangerous. Emily asked us what Labor Day was about. We told her that it was a day we had to labor...she seemed to accept that and so we put the kids to work in the yard. Besides, I think it has been what we seem to end up doing every Labor Day for at least the past few years.

The kids are usually pretty excited to get a job in the garden to earn otter-pops.

Emily is finally re-growing all the baby teeth she lost in the front of her mouth over the summer.

Caitlyn learned to tie her shoes! We were pretty excited about that.

Back to School Night

Just one question...When did it become acceptable for the lowest acceptable state standard for education become the benchmark for success?

Day Off

Well, on Wednesday, I finally decided to take a day off. I fought the urge to head back to the school. I was feeling a little worn out again anyway...fighting yet another disease no doubt from hanging out with so many kids lately. I'm sure my immune system isn't quite up to par after convalescing for two months with my previous sickness.

Anyway, while I was stuck at home over the summer, I picked up one of my many unfinished projects. Emily's baby book. Yes, I know she is already almost 8. Better late than never, right? I received a couple of scrapbooks from different people as baby gifts and I had thought I would give it a try. No sooner had I started the project, did I realize that I'm not really the scrapbooking type. It was too much work. It was too expensive and required a lot of creativity and thought. As soon as the baby came, I didn't have any of those resources to give to the project.  After adjusting to having our first baby in the house, we had to deal with colic, teething, mobility...you get the picture. I haven't touched it since.

Now I have thousands of pictures of the kids and to just choose pictures for printing is overwhelming. Christian has been helping me sort and organize my photo files this summer and helping me choose pictures for their albums. Looking at pictures on the computer is nice, but sitting down and looking at the prints every once in a while is just different and I guess I am a traditionalist.

I have several of the shutterfly books and while I love them and will continue to make them for certain purposes, I felt that they lacked a certain amount of warmth that a real album has. (Can you tell that I have always cherished my photo albums? They are my most important possessions). I even considered digital scrapbooking and having the results printed but in the end, it would just be as expensive or more and it still lacks that personal touch. Plus, I didn't want to open a whole new can of worms that that would bring. So I contrived to finish her baby album once and for all but it would just be a photo album with a few cute embelishments instead of full on scrapbook.

I did manage to finish Emily's album up to the end of her first year before the kids went back to school and I have been waiting for some alone time to head to JoAnn's for a few supplies to work on Caitlyn's first year. I have never been so overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time over the supplies available for scrapbooking. First, they are soo very expensive. Second, they are so over the top. And third, did I mention they were expensive?

I wanted some cute stickers and things to embellish Caitlyn's album a bit more (because I'm missing some information about the "second" baby that I kept for the first). So I thought I would cover it up with cuteness but then I realized that I couldn't make it too cute or the first kid would get too jealous of the second. It has to be just cute enough so I had to find the perfect balance (who says having two kids is easier than one?). Most of the stuff I found was just too much over the top or just plain gaudy. I found some embellishments that I liked but they always come in a pack with a bunch of things I couldn't use or didn't want to use. And to use only half or less of that stuff is pretty expensive to toss the rest out.

I had a headache and I was exhausted at the ended of it all and headed home remembering why I don't like scrapbooking.

Back to School

The girls' first day of school was Monday. Even though it still seems early, I was so ready for them to go back to school. They started out the summer doing really great. I had a bunch of plans to take them out to have fun but then we got sick. Even though I was bed ridden for a while, the kids were still super good about being on their own. They played so well together and let me rest (more or less). But it threw us off our schedule we had set up for the summer and it was hard to get them back on it once I was able to get around a bit more. A lot of our summer plans got ruined and the last three weeks around here has been less than pleasant. The girls wouldn't do any of their chores, they fought a lot but you couldn't keep them apart. I think we all needed some time apart to appreciate each other again.

We had to have the kids clean up their play room and their desks before school started on Friday after we found out their class assignments so that the room was usable again. Plus, we needed to vacuum. Their playroom wasn't as much of a mess so I figured it would just take them an hour or two at the most to do it and they would be free to have fun before school started. It took them two days. They just kept playing around and making more of a mess. They didn't finish until Saturday evening. So, that was the end of their summer.

Regardless, the kids were excited to go back to school. I was going to drive Caitlyn in for her first day but she wanted to ride the bus with her sister.

She took off without looking back for her first day of kindergarten. It seemed a little too easy. Christian and I followed shortly after in our own vehicle. Emily dropped off Caitlyn to the kindergarten play yard and went to join her friends in her own playground.

We found Caitlyn standing wistfully in the corner either waiting for us or just wishing that she was not quite so eager to go to school. She was obviously not comfortable and a little scared of all the new people and faces. I couldn't get her to smile for any pictures.

In fact, she is such a stubborn little girl that she would not even stand on a line to wait for the teacher to take them in...she stood just next to it.

We went to check on Emily but she was doing fine. She found some of her old friends and they just continued as if they just came back from a long weekend.

She never needed much adjustment to change. She revels in it for the most part. It's sameness that gets to her. She needs excitement and change. She is a very social animal.

Christian and I ended up staying in Caitlyn's class for a good part of the day. There were 33 kids in her class this year and that was only because 2 kids were absent. It was absolutely insane. There were a bunch of us that stayed in the beginning and she needed all of us. I don't know what they were thinking when the voted to put this many kids together with one teacher for a full day. So many of the kids could not follow the simplest rules and we had to herd them around school trying to show them where everything was.

Luckily, Caitlyn finally warmed up to being in her new class and had some fun.

Both of the girls had a few people from their previous classes so that helped them in the transition a bit.

Caitlyn is a bit of an introvert like her parents and needs a bit of time to adjust.  At some point we were finally able to tear ourselves away from her class. I dropped Christian off at work (late). And it was noon by the time I got home.

So even though we have both our kids away at school for a full day, I ended up with three hours to myself. So, all in all, about half an hour more than before with preschool.

What's worse, when I went to pick them up at the bus stop, the bus never came. I stood outside in the heat for 30 minutes only to have to run home and call the school to find out that their bus never arrived and that they were all still in front of the school waiting for it (also still in the heat). I told them to yank my kids into the office so that I could pick them up myself. They had no idea when the bus would finally arrive. I wasn't about to keep standing out in the street waiting for who knows how long. As I was pulling out of the school after picking up the girls, the missing bus finally arrived. I hope today goes better. At least they actually knew where the kids were this time. Last time this happened, they gave me the run around and the kids were exactly where they were this time...in front of the school.

I volunteered again at Caitlyn's class today for nearly four hours. They still had 33 kids today and it was a little less chaotic but their teacher would not able to handle those kids if it was not for the parents who showed up again. In fact, we saw one of the other kindergarten classes that had no parents participating and he did not know he was missing a kid from a bathroom stop. We informed him and he said to just put her in the back of the line but she wasn't done and he left without her. I took her back to her class when she was done and he did not even notice I brought her back. I tried to get his attention but he was too busy with the kids. All I've got to say is that I'm extra glad we didn't end up in that class.

I had an hour and a half to come back, have lunch and finish my post. The kids will be back in 15 minutes or so if the bus actually comes. Hope springs eternal.